I am a leading expert in Latin fiction, all genres of Roman comedy, and textual criticism and editorial practice. My interest in the Roman comic theatre of the Republic is not confined to the scripts of Plautus and Terence, but focuses especially on the literary mime and the Atellane comedy of the first century BC, types of low and popular theatrical entertainment which flourished in the important era of Cicero and Caesar but have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. My publications combine traditional philological methods and a literary approach, and examine drama both from a theatrical and from a socio-political perspective, thus providing the foundation for a full assessment of the influence of popular theatre on other literary genres and its interaction with them in the Roman Republic and the Empire.

My first book, Theatrum Arbitri (Leiden, 1995), was a comprehensive study of the influence of Roman popular theatre (especially the theatre of the mime) on the novel of Petronius. After its publication and its favourable reception I was invited to review Petronian books in several periodicals, and was commissioned by The National Bank of Greece to translate into Modern Greek P.G. Walsh’s The Roman Novel (Cambridge, 1970). The translation appeared in 2001, the year I was invited to become Review Editor of Ancient Narrative, the pre-eminent international periodical for ancient fiction, based in The Netherlands, and to teach as a Visiting Professor for a semester (Spring 2002) at the University of Cyprus. I continue to publish on Petronius (I am currently working on a new edition/translation/commentary on ‘Dinner at Trimalchio’s’ for Liverpool Classical Press and I have been commissioned to write the volume on Petronius for the Greece & Rome New Surveys in Classics) and to act as external reader for works on Petronius submitted to academic Presses and to periodicals.

My studies in comic fiction led me to low drama: in 1997 I published an article on Christian mime, in 1998 a short book in Modern Greek on the mimographer Publilius, and in 2006 one more article on mime-actresses in the Republican and the Early Imperial periods. I was honoured to be awarded the Snell Visitorship for Martinmas Term 1999 and an Arts and Humanities Research Board grant for Candlemas Term 2000; they enabled me to spend my period of study leave at Balliol College, continuing my work on the Roman mime. The result of the project was a substantial volume entitled Decimus Laberius: The Fragments; it appeared in the series ‘Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries’ (vol. 46) (Cambridge, 2010). Many of the fragments I have been working with are preserved to us because they are quoted by ancient grammarians and lexicographers on account of their linguistic peculiarities. My research on such texts—influenced by the studies of J.N. Adams and the work done at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Munich, and sponsored by competitive grants obtained from internal and external funding bodies—has given me the opportunity to fill in a gap in Roman popular entertainment and Republican cultural history, and to acquire and deploy skills in morphology, as well as a deep insight into the different schools of ancient grammatical theories. As a result of the positive reception by reviewers of the volume on Laberius, I have undertaken to prepare an equally comprehenesive study on the fragments of Atellane comedy (which are, more or less, twice as many in number as the fragments attributed to Laberius). My work on fragmentary Republican drama has also given me the confidence and the ability to deal with manuscripts and in many ways it has paved the way to my decision to edit a text that has its own manuscript tradition, namely the highly influential and popular collection of prouerbia or sententiae associated with Publilius (last edited in 1888). In this I owe a great debt to M.D. Reeve and V. von Büren for their support and encouragement.

I became interested in moral maxims, their importance in Roman society, and the transmission of the important collection of Latin apophthegms attributed to Publilius because of their connection with mime as a theatrical genre. In 2013 I was commissioned by an international committee of scholars from Spain, France, and Italy, who were researching on Latin proverbs (project title: “Analyse linguistique et interculturelle des énoncés sapientiels brefs et de leur transmission orient”) to write a long chapter on the direct and the indirect transmissions of the sayings of Publilius. The 35-page book-chapter I wrote, which appeared in January 2014, included the first-ever transcription of the oldest (ninth-century) and until recently ‘lost’ Latin manuscript containing the collection. I also wrote a popular blog on the ‘rediscovery’ of the manuscript: see http://classics.academicblogs.co.uk/an-exciting-manuscript-re-discovery-in-the-field-of-latin-moral-sayings/ For details of my progress on this project, please see below. A separate project arising from this critical edition will examine the ‘dialogue’ of these witty ‘sound-bites’ with other literary genres (tragedy, philosophy, historiography), as well their significance for the theatrical culture, the education plans, the rhetorical schooling, and the moral agenda of the Roman society from the first century b.c. to the time of Macrobius and Jerome.

Ongoing large-scale research

(i) Petronius, Cena Trimalchionis or ‘Dinner at Trimalchio’s’ (Satyrica, 26.7–78.8): with an introduction, translation and commentary (Liverpool Classical Press; under contract). As well as producing a new commentary and a new translation on Petronius’ ‘Cena Trimalchionis’, the project aims at re-examining the complete extant manuscript of the ‘Cena’ (H) so as to create a new text.

(ii) Fabula Atellana: The Fragments. This is an entirely new critical edition of the fragments of all the Roman playwrights (Pomponius, Novius, Mummius, Aprissius, and incerti) who composed literary fabula Atellana; the edition will be accompanied by the first-ever English translation of the Atellane fragments and the first-ever detailed literary, philological, metrical, and theatrical commentary in English, which will both contextualise Atellane comedy in the culture of the early first century b.c. and of the Imperial period, and relate it to the pioneering works of Plautus and Terence. The project has been sponsored so far by a British Academy research grant for a trip to Genoa (2008), a Visiting Fellowship at St John’s, Oxford (2009), a research grant from The Carnegie Trust to work for 2 months at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae section of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften in Munich (2009), a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls, Oxford (2011), as well as by the award from the British Academy of the Balsdon Fellowship at the British School at Rome (2012), and by a Research Fellowship from The Leverhulme Trust (September 2023–November 2024). My aim is to publish this volume in the “orange” series of CUP “Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries” as a companion volume to my Decimus Laberius: The Fragments (CUP, 2010).

(iii) Fragments of Republican Latin, vol. IV: Atellana. Mime. Loeb Classical Library Series.

(iv) Popular wisdom and the Latin moral maxims (sententiae) associated with Publilius. The Syrian mime-writer Publilius (first century bc) was highly influential in pagan times as a comic dramatist and in the Christian era as a moralist. In spite of his importance and the discovery of new manuscripts containing sententiae attributed to him, there has not been a critical text of the sententiae since 1880. I am working towards establishing an entirely new critical text of the 734 maxims, which will also examine the ‘dialogue’ of these witty ‘sound-bites’ with other literary genres (tragedy, philosophy, historiography), as well their significance for the theatrical culture, the education plans, the rhetorical schooling, and the moral agenda of the Roman society from the first century b.c. to the time of Macrobius and Jerome. I have already collated about 105 out of the currently known 160 manuscripts. The textual side of the project has been sponsored so far by The John Robertson Bequest (2005), The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (2009), and The Balsdon Fellowship at the BSR (2012).

(v) A new critical edition of Charisius’ Ars grammatica. Although I have been familiar since about 2000 with the textual problems of Charisius’ text through my studies of the fragments of Latin mime-drama and of Atellane comedy transmitted through the grammar of Charisius, I seriously became interested in preparing a new text of Charisius’ grammar in the spring of 2019 when I discussed this possibility, its methodology, and the way forward with Professor Mario De Nonno, to whom I am grateful for guidance and encouragement. In May 2019 I delivered a short speech on the topic at the Second Latin Ancient Grammarians Forum which took place at Trinity College, Dublin, and began to collect bibliographical material.

List by: Type | Date

• 2023     The Leverhulme Trust – Research Fellowship
• 2013     The Royal Society of Edinburgh—CRF European Visiting Research Fellowship
• 2013     The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
• 2013-2014 Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship
• 2012     The British School at Rome, Balsdon Fellowship
• 2011     All Souls College, Oxford, Visiting Fellowship
• 2009     The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland
• 2009     St. John’s College, Oxford, Visiting Scholarship
• 2008     British Academy Small Research Grant
• 2005     British Academy Overseas Conference Grant
• 2005     John Robertson Bequest Grant
• 2004     British Academy Overseas Conference Grant
• 2001     British Academy Overseas Conference Grant
• 2000     British Academy Travel Grant
• 1999     Arts and Humanities Research Board, Research Leave Scheme Grant
• 1999     British Academy Overseas Conference Grant
• 1999     Glasgow University Snell Visitorship for research at Balliol College, Oxford

Participation in Externally Funded Research Projects

Since 01.01.2021 I have been a member of the Advisory Board of the ERC-funded project “Priscian’s Ars grammatica in European Scriptoria. A Millennium of Latin and Greek Scholarship”, with Professor Michella Rosellini (Rome, La Sapienza) as the Principal Investigator.

Since September 2022 I have been one of the external collaborators of the Research Team led by Professor Javier Uría on the four-year project (funded by the Spanish Research Agency) on “Editing the Latin grammatical fragments of the first century AD”.

During 2019–2021 I was the external member of the Research Team led by Professor Spyros Tzounakas (University of Nicosia, Cyprus) in the project “The reception of ancient Cyprus in the culture of the western world” funded by the Institution for the Promotion of Research at the University of Cyprus.

Since February 2023 I have been the sole external collaborator of the two-year research project “Generic Interactions in Persius’ Satires” led by Professor Spyros Tzounakas (University of Nicosia, Cyprus) and funded by the Institution for the Promotion of Research at the University of Cyprus.

I would greatly welcome the opportunity to supervise postgraduate students who wish to work at Master’s or PhD level in the following areas:

• editing Latin texts, through direct or indirect transmission
• Roman drama (comedy and tragedy in all their forms), including its reception and translation
• Roman fictional narrative, including its reception
• the interaction between high and low culture in the Republic and the Empire.

Before the system of supervisory panels was launched, I was sole supervisor for a one-year MPhil research degree (‘The Tale of Cupid and Psyche’, successfully submitted in December 1996) and for a PhD (‘The exploitation of epic in Roman satire’, successfully submitted in December 2002). During the past six years, I co-supervised 9 postgraduate students, 3 of them studying part-time. Their topics:

• Greek medical writing (‘Aëtius of Amida, Libri medicinales Book 1: Introduction, edition, translation, and commentary’: successfully completed in August 2015) (50% supervisor);
• Roman satire (‘The impact of Lucilius on Horace’s Satires and Epodes’; successfully completed in August 2016) (75% supervisor);
• Roman religion and fictional narrative (‘Apuleius and religious conversion’; successfully completed in September 2016) (75% supervisor);
• Greek textual tradition (‘Hero’s Peri Automatopoihtikēs: introduction, edition, translation, and commentary’; successfully completed in December 2019) (50% supervisor);
• Latin medical treatises (‘Scribonius Largus: introduction, translation, and commentary on select extracts of the Compositiones Medicamentorum’; in progress) (50% supervisor);
• Roman comedy and social history (‘Roman identity and the fragments of the fabula togata’; successfully completed in 2021) (25% supervisor jointly with Dr Giuseppe Pezzini from the University of St Andrews who is the main supervisor).

I have acted as (external or internal) examiner for the following PhD Theses:

• Asimina Palli, PhD, May 2002, University of Cyprus, Narrative structures in the Satyrica of Petronius (in Modern Greek);
• Regine May, DPhil, July 2002, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, A Comic Novel? Roman and New Comedy in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses;
• D. McLeish, BPhil, Sept. 2002, The Open University, Petronius: Protest or Sensationalism;
• M.B. O’Reilly, PhD, December 2002, University of Glasgow, Undercurrents in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Hercules; Pygmalion; and Myrrha;
• A.D. Matthews, MLitt, May 2004, University of Newcastle, A Study of Allusion to Earlier Ovidian Material in Ovid’s Metamorphoses;
• Robert Harman, PhD, May 2016, University of Nottingham, A Commentary on Plautus’ Epidicus;
• Raymond Harding, PhD, September 2016 (revised and resubmitted for examination in March 2018), Macquarie University, Pantomime Dancing and Metamorphosis Literature in Late Antiquity;
• Christy Lowe, PhD, January 2017, University of Lampeter, Colloquial Elements in Plautus’ Language;
• Eva Gemenetzi, PhD, October 2017, University of Crete, The Beautiful and the Ugly in the Satyrica of Petronius;
• Christiana Tsoutsouki, PhD, December 2017, University of Cyprus, The Character of the Imaginary Interlocutor in Roman Satire;
• M.L. Haley, PhD, October 2018, University of Leeds, Reconstructing Revenge: Thyestes Tragedies from Sophocles to Seneca;
• Daniela Gallo, PhD, March 2020, UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI CASSINO E DEL LAZIO MERIDIONALE in co-tutela con SORBONNE UNIVERSITÉ, L’Ars Riuipullensis: un commento al De partibus orationis di Donato;
• Andrea Bramanti, PhD, March 2020, UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE in cotutela con SORBONNE UNIVERSITÉ, Nuova edizione critica e commento delle Artes grammaticae (libri I–II) di Plozio Sacerdote e dei Catholica Probi;
• Gardner Mary Moore, PhD, June 2020, University of Glasgow, Pietas and Stoicism in Virgil’s Aeneid: Re-examining Religious Thinking and Legacy in the Epic;
• Fabio Nolfo, PhD, September 2021, Università di Macerata in cotutela con L-M-U München, La ‘longa aetas’ del poeta di Sulmona: tipologie femminili ovidiane negli Epigrammi di Decimo Magno Ausonio;
• Marta Maria Perilli, PhD, December 2021, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Giovenale, satira 15. Introduzione, traduzione e commento.
• Konrad Löbke, PhD, November 2023, Mainz, Sexual rivalry in Petronius’ Satyrica. A study on comic elements and narrative technique.

I am currently also the external supervisor of Dr Fabio Nolfo, who is Marie Curie Research Fellow in ‘Latin Literature and Roman History’ and Principal Investigator of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)/Onisilos Co-fund Fellowship project «Literary Reflections on Geography, Politics, and Propaganda in Neronian and Flavian Poetry» at the Universities of Cyprus and Glasgow for the period 2023–2025.

My teaching has greatly evolved during my time at the Universty of Glasgow and as a result of my teaching experience as a visitor at other academic institutions; it is interactive, reflective, and empowering. No matter how large or small a class is, and regardless of the topic I am teaching, I will involve the audience in the learning and teaching process, they will be asked to reflect on what they have learned and how the intended learning outcomes have changed them as learners, and together my students and I will create opportunities for independent learning and initiatives to apply to other contexts the skills that have been learned. One aspect of my teaching, though, that has not changed through the years is my enthusiasm and passion for teaching Classics, and my philosophy of teaching rests on the premise that if I cannot be enthusiastic and engaging about my subject-matter I should not expect my students to be enthusiastic and engaged either.

I have excellent experience in teaching the ancient languages at all levels and through different perspectives (from beginners level to the stage of advanced Latin prose composition) and considerable experience in teaching a wide variety of literary genres and of social topics concerning Graeco-Roman antiquity. I have given lectures to large audiences (up to 200 students) and to small-group classes, but also one-to-one tutorials and mixed-ability language classes. Sometimes I teach single-handedly a class which I also convene (especially the Beginners’ Latin class which may consist of even 60 students), but often I am involved in team-taught courses, especially level-one or level-two Classical Civilisation courses (convened either by me or by a colleague), which require excellent interpersonal and communication skills, as well as the ability to function effectively and harmoniously as a team-member.

The feedback I receive from students in anonymous student questionnaires and at staff-student committee meetings for my contribution to team-taught courses or to courses in which I am the sole tutor is consistently excellent, and my line-managers always commend me in their reports for my enthusiasm, professionalism, high standards, and effective engagement with my students. In the peer-review teaching observation system, which we operate at Glasgow University, my colleagues’ comments on my teaching methods have always been enthusiastic. I also invite feedback frequently and informally from my students in the classroom, and I do not wait for the end of the semester to issue invitations for constructive criticism; every now and then during the sessions I ask the students if there is anything else that can be done to facilitate their learning, and their comments are always followed by action.

In order to monitor the quality of my teaching skills, I have been attending since 1994 workshops, most of them organised by the University of Glasgow Teaching and Learning Service, on Student Effective and Independent Learning, Curriculum Design, Student Assessment, Preparing and Organising Lectures, Voice, Speech and Delivery Skills, Tutoring and Small Group Skills, and Mentoring. I am keen to promote active learning, especially in classes which involve the ancient languages, and I profit from exchanging my views with colleagues in HEA-sponsored workshops on Teaching the Ancient Languages.

As a way of enhancing my teaching experience and disseminating my research expertise outside the comfortable environment of Glasgow University, in 2017 I took the initiative to deliver to a cohort of postgraduate students from various HEIs in the UK a session on commentary-writing at a ‘Commentary Writing’ workshop held at the University of St Andrews. In 2017 I was also invited to give a session on Latin textual criticism to undergraduates at the University of St Andrews. In 2012 and 2016 I delivered two master-classes to undergraduates and postgraduates at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus; and in 2013 I went through the Erasmus Visiting Teacher Mobility Scheme of Glasgow University to Nijmegen, The Netherlands, where I gave six hours of undergraduate courses (one three-hour course on ‘Narratology and the ancient novel’ and another three-hour course on ‘Non-standard Latin in Petronius’ “Dinner at Trimalchio’s”’) in front of students and teaching staff. The comments I received from both groups were highly favourable.

My contribution to the Classics curriculum at the University of Glasgow has been manifold. I have added entirely new research-led thematic courses to the menu of Honours (third and fourth year) options—namely ‘Ancient Fiction: Impotent Heroes and Damsels in Distress’, ‘The Roman Stage: A Cultural History of Popular Entertainment from the Early Republic to the Late Empire’, ‘The Greek and Roman Mime’—in which I examine the texts not only as literary constructs but also as cultural products that make sense within their social contexts and become relevant to us when studied from various theoretical perspectives and from the point of view of modern reception. My two most popular courses, however, are (a) Gender and Sexuality in Rome, which I introduced to the Glasgow Classics curriculum in 1998 (at that time nothing like it existed in Classics at my university), and which uses literary, epigraphic, legal, medical, and material evidence from Rome (and Greece) to explore what it meant to be ‘male’ and ‘female’ in the Roman world (and how all this relates to us and compares with our behaviour and expectations); and (b) the Core Travel Course, which I created and delivered in January 2012; this course enhanced the internationalisation agenda of my subject-area, as well as student employability skills and confidence levels. The Core Travel Course gives students the opportunity to conceive a Classics-related project which they are then invited to realize during a three-week funded trip to classical sites in Greece and/or Italy. After the trip they submit a reflective diary on their journey and present to their peers the outcome of their project; the presentation is followed by a questions and answers session.

Technology plays an important part in my teaching, when appropriate. For instance, innovative and very successful elements of my engagement with the Beginners Latin students were the creation of weekly quizzes on moodle, the Virtual Learning Environment for the course, and the involvement of students in the learning process by inviting them to take pictures of Latin phrases they happened to notice on buildings or stained-glass windows in the city of Glasgow, which exemplified straightforward Latin grammatical and syntactical constructions that the students themselves subsequently presented to their peers in the classroom. Equally popular were the assignments that involved the exhibits of the Glasgow University Hunterian Museum (especially the Roman inscriptions of Hadrian’s Wall) in teaching Beginners Latin. All of these initiatives were a great success in practice.

In March 2014, on the basis of 750 student interviews, I was one of four colleagues shortlisted for an award for Innovative Teaching in the whole of Glasgow University in the Student Teaching Awards 2013–2014. I received a Highly Commended Certificate. In 2023 I was nominated for a Student Teaching Award in the category Best College Teacher in the College of Arts.

Esteem Indicators (Special Awards, Honours and Distinctions)

2024    Visiting Research Professor at the Università di Roma, La Sapienza in the Dipartimento di Lettere e Culture Moderne (1 September – 30 November 2024).

2023    I was invited to join (from January 2024) the Comitato Scientifico of the international peer-reviewed Classics journal Noctes Romanae. Rivista di filologia e linguistica.

2023    Panel Member in the assessment of applications for the ERC-Consolidator Grants January–September 2023.

2022    Hugh Last Visiting Fellow at the British School at Rome: April–June 2022.

2021    I was invited to join (from January 2022) the Comitato Scientifico of the international peer-reviewed Classics journal Sileno. Rivista semestrale di studi classici e cristiani fondata da Quintino Cataudella.

2021    Visiting Fellow at the Università di Pisa, Dipartimento di Filologia, Letteratura e Linguistica, Sezione di Filologia classica for eleven weeks (from 20/9/21 to 5/12/21); duties: writing an article jointly with Professor Alessandro Russo on all the citations of Ennius in the text of Charisius.

2019    Visiting Professor in Latin at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa for three weeks in late May and early June; duties: pursuing research and giving a research seminar (of one hour) to staff, postgraduate and undergraduate students of the SNS.

2019    Visiting Professor in Classics at the University of Göttingen for one week in early May; duties: pursuing research, delivering a two-hour workshop for postgraduate research students and staff as well as a three-hour teaching session to undergraduate students.

2019    Visiting Professor in Classics at the University of Melbourne for two weeks in April; duties: discussing research project on Latin Sexual Diseases with Professor Tim Parkin, delivering a two-hour workshop for postgraduate research students, a one-hour research seminar to staff and postgraduate students of the department, a one-hour (recorded) public outreach evening lecture to The Classical Association, and an one-hour research seminar to the staff at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.

2018    In July of this year I was appointed by the University of Swansea as external assessor in their internal Research Excellence Framework (REF) exercise with a view to evaluating the scholarly quality of the Latin/Roman publications of the colleagues in Classics at the University of Swansea, Wales.

2016    I was invited by the European Research Council (ERC) to participate in the peer review of scientific proposals submitted to the ERC Advanced Grant 2016 Call.

2016    I was invited to join the Comitato Scientifico of the new interdisciplinary and open-access Classics journal Storie di Storie.

2014    I became (by invitation) joint editor of The Classical Quarterly, one of the most distinguished peer-reviewed journals in Classics nationally and internationally. My period of office was five years in the first instance (2014–2019), but it has now been renewed for another five years (2019–2024).

2012    Balsdon Fellow at the British School at Rome: April–June 2012.

2011    Visiting Fellow in All Souls College, Oxford: January–March (Hilary Term) 2011.

2009    Visiting Scholar in St. John’s College, Oxford: 6 weeks during the summer of 2009.

2009    I joined (by invitation) the editorial board of Oxford Bibliographies Online–Classics on account of my contribution to the development of this research tool.

2009    Chief organiser of the joint meeting of The Classical Association and The Classical Association of Scotland, held in Glasgow at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 6–9 April 2009. As a result of my cooperation with the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau during the preparations for this widely publicised event I was awarded the title of Glasgow Ambassador. Owing to Full Economic Costing there was a profit of £5,000 for the University.

2006    I was invited to become Associate Member of KYKNOS (the Swansea, Lampeter and Exeter Centre for Research on the Narrative Literatures of the Ancient World).

2000    Member of the advisory board of the on-line classics periodical Ancient Narrative, based in The Netherlands, which specialises in the study of ancient fiction. In June 2001 I was invited to join the editorial board of this periodical by becoming its Review Editor.

1999    Glasgow University Snell Visitorship (October–December 1999) for research at Balliol College, Oxford.

1995    Member of the editorial board of the classics periodical Groningen Colloquia on the Novel.

Invited lectures or research seminars

I have regularly addressed audiences

• at research seminars in the UK (Leeds 1994, 2007, 2016; Newcastle 2000, 2017; Maynooth 2000; Cambridge 2003; Canterbury 2020; London 2003, 2011; Edinburgh 2003, 2007; Manchester 2005, 2008; Swansea 2006; Cork 2007; Lampeter 2008; Nottingham 2010, Exeter 2016, Durham 2018, and the Oxford Philological Society 2011),
• in Europe (Groningen 1995, 2000; Nicosia 1998, 2002; Munich 2004; Limassol 2007; Rome 2009 and 2018; Komotini 2016; Padova 2020; Naples 2022),
• and further abroad (Pretoria 2000; Philadelphia 2002; Gainesville, Florida, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2016; Boston 2005; Montreal 2006; The Florida State University, Tallahassee 2011; Rio de Janeiro and University of Campinas, Brazil 2015; Melbourne, 2019);
• and at Classical Association Annual Meetings (Oxford 1992; Durham 1993; Exeter 1994; St Andrews 1995; Liverpool 1999; Manchester 2001; Reading 2005; Bristol 2015; Swansea, 2020);
• I was especially honoured to have been invited to give the opening lecture in the series of events for session 2018–2019 of the Centre for Hellenic Studies (Greece) of Harvard University in co-operation with the University of Crete on 5/12/2018 on the topic of ‘Latin sayings, culture and lifestyle’.

Research Conference-Organising

2001    Co-organiser (with D.L. Cairns and R.A. Knox) of “Athenian Law and Life” (30/6/2001 until 2/7/2001), an International Conference organised in honour of D.M. MacDowell, FBA. As Treasurer of the conference I was awarded £1810 from the British Academy to cover expenses of overseas speakers.

2007    Co-organiser (with G. Manuwald) of ‘Meaningful remains: working with literary fragments from early Rome’, an international colloquium held on 10/3/2007 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, under the auspices of the Corpus Christi College Centre for the Study of Greek and Roman Antiquity.

2009    Chief organiser of the joint meeting of The Classical Association and The Classical Association of Scotland, held in Glasgow at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 6-9 April 2009. There were 59 panels, over 230 speakers, and 384 participants from England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Estonia, South Africa, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. As a result of my co-operation with the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau during the preparations for this widely-publicised event I was awarded the title of Glasgow Ambassador. Because of Full Economic Costing there was a profit of approximately £5,000 for the University of Glasgow. 

2013    Co-organiser (with I.A. Ruffell of the University of Glasgow) of ‘Reconsidering popular comedy and the comic’, an international conference held in Glasgow on 28–30 August. 

2023    Co-organiser (with F. Nolfo and D. Longrée of the University of Liège in Belgium) of ‘Ovidian poetry and its afterlife: new approaches and perspectives’, an international online conference held on 29 and 30 March. 

Professional Activities beyond the University

Contribution to important Classics-related bodies outside the University of Glasgow

• In 2002 I was elected (for three years) as an ordinary member of the Council of the Universities Classics Departments (CUCD) Standing Committee, the single most important committee for the discussion of Classics at a national level, and in 2004 its Elections Officer; in 2005 my term of office as Elections Officer was renewed for another three years.
• In 2007 I was elected as member of Council of The Classical Association (2007–2012).
• I have served on the Council of the Classical Association of Scotland (I was elected Secretary to the CAS in October 2005), and I have done two five-year stints as Honorary Secretary of the Classical Association of Scotland, Glasgow & West Centre;
• I have also served as the Honorary Treasurer (1995-2000), the Vice-President (2000-2003, 2016-), and the President (2003-2006) of the Scottish Hellenic Society in Glasgow.

Outreach

My most effective and personal involvement with Classics Outreach is the excellent network I have built up with Classics teachers and a number of state and independent schools in Scotland and England.

• My sixteen-year teaching career at the JACT (Joint Association of Classics Teachers) Greek Summer School in Bryanston, where I have also given invited talks on Aristophanic Comedy, Greek New Comedy, Petronius, Senecan tragedy, and the Hellnistic mime to audiences of about 350 pupils from schools all over the UK, and I have co-directed student-led productions of Aristophanes’ plays, has given me the opportunity to meet about 50 teachers from a number of both state and independent schools in England and Scotland.
• Through this network I have often been invited to address school audiences or the general public: such visits include talks I gave at the Festival of Greek Drama in University College London (2006), at the Latin Summer School in Bath (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018), at Fettes College in Edinburgh (May 2005, October 2006, November 2022), at the North London Collegiate School (November 2006), at Kingston Grammar School (March 2018), at the Greek and Latin Breakfast Club of the Godolphyn & Latymer School (April 2010, January 2012, March 2016, September 2019), and at Highgate School, where I was invited to give the first D.M. MacDowell Memorial Lecture (September 2011). In the last five years I addressed teachers, pupils, and parents at Bryanston Summer School, Dorset (2013), Mary Erskine School, Edinburgh (2013), Shrewsbury High School (2014 and 2015), George Heriot’s School, Edinburgh (2014), High School of Glasgow (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), St Benedict’s School in London (2016), Notting Hill and Ealing High School (2017, 2023), Kingston Grammar School Classical Society (2018), and the CAS-G&W (March 2018);
• In addition to delivering talks at schools, I recorded an A-level targeted video course of 96 minutes with Massolit in October 2019. The details are: Panayotakis, Costas "Apuleius: Cupid and Psyche – Genre." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 19 Feb 2021.  This has strengthened the presence of Glasgow Classics in A-level classrooms with a direct impact on recruitment. Massolit’s reach is significant: 685 schools subscribe.
• In October 2011 I addressed (by invitation) 45 schoolteachers, members of The Association of Classics Teachers of Ireland, to teach them how to teach at school Roman comedy that had recently been added to the school syllabus. I also attended as an invited resident academic a three-day meeting of ARLT, The Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching, at Sheffield (July 2010). The list of participants comprised teachers from state and independent schools, and I greatly profited from a series of twelve sessions I gave on teaching teachers how to teach Latin language and Petronius to pupils.

Commitment to public engagement

I have a sustained track record of cultural engagement with the community as shown in invited talks to non-academic societies and the media.

• In 2010, 2011, and 2018 I gave non-specialised talks on Roman drama to members of The Scottish Hellenic Society in Glasgow and in Aberdeen. In 2012, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2024 I delivered non-academic talks on acting in antiquity and the Roman novel to members of The Breakfast Club of the Godolphyn and Latymer School in Hammersmith, London, and in June 2016 I gave the plenary lecture during a week of outreach events held at St Benedict’s School in Ealing in London.
• In May 2014 I contributed to a Hunterian Associates Project that dealt with the Hunterian coin collection of the University of Glasgow. I was video-recorded (10 minutes) talking about the representation of games and festivals on Roman coins. The video was posted on Facebook and YouTube, and was the most frequently visited item of the exhibition.

In November 2016 I gave a radio interview to a journalist in Nicosia, Cyprus, for a peak-time show that discussed ancient and modern proverbs, and in November 2016 a talk on Roman tragedy and philosophy to the Philosophical Association of Cyprus in Nicosia.