Jonathan Prag co-edits important new work on ‘The Hellenistic West’

Merton Tutor in Ancient History Dr Jonathan Prag is co-editor of 'The Hellenistic West - Rethinking the Ancient Mediterranean', a substantial new book that questions historians' traditional separation of the ‘Greek East’ and the ‘Roman West’ and argues for a dynamic reading of the economy, politics and history of the central and western Mediterranean beyond Rome. It contends that the Hellenistic-period Mediterranean was a strongly interconnected cultural and economic zone, with the rising Roman republic just one among many powers in the region, east and west.

The book’s contributors are a mix of eminent historians and archaeologists from the UK and the US whose contributions range geographically across the entire western Mediterranean (and beyond), including Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, North Africa, Spain. Subjects covered include historiography, archaeology, art history, numismatics, and epigraphy.

Dr Prag has published articles on ancient Sicily, Punic identity, Greek and Roman epigraphy, and Roman Republican history, with a particular interest in Roman Republican imperialism. He has edited volumes on Cicero and Petronius and is currently writing a monograph on the use of non-Italian soldiers by the Roman Republican army, collaborating on a commentary on Cicero’s Verrines and working on a new digital corpus of Sicilian inscriptions. His co-editor, Dr Josephine Crawley Quinn, is a Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor of Worcester College, Oxford.