EUP 75: Our Publishing in Ancient History & Classical Studies

by Helena Heald

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While the Greek and Latin languages have been studied at the University of Edinburgh since its foundation in 1583, our Ancient History and Classical Studies list is a relatively modern addition to our publishing at the Press.

The list was initially developed by John Davey, a widely respected and well-connected commissioning editor in the field. David Lorton’s translation of History of Ancient Egypt by Erik Hornung and Richard Gordon’s translation of Manfred Clauss’s The Roman Cult of Mithras launched the list in 2000. By publishing works by continental European scholars in translation, we made these important works accessible to the anglophone world. Likewise, the Edinburgh Readings on the Ancient World series collected articles on key topics in the ancient world, including chapters that appeared in English for the first time. From this series come some of our bestselling titles from the past two decades: Sparta (edited by Michael Whitby) and Sex and Difference in Ancient Greece and Rome (edited by Mark Golden & Peter Toohey).

Introducing Our Series in Ancient History and Classical Studies

Over the years we’ve maintained a close relationship with the Classics Department at the University of Edinburgh, where many of our series editors are based. The pinnacle of this relationship is our Edinburgh Leventis Studies series (edited by Douglas Cairns), which publishes innovative edited collections featuring chapters from the biggest names in Ancient Greek history and culture. Recent volumes have covered everything from the relationship between Ancient Greek History and Contemporary Social Science to classical reception around the Greek revolution of 1821.

Other series with a long history include our bestselling textbook series The Edinburgh History of Ancient Rome and Debates and Documents in Ancient History, which have introduced many cohorts of students to the ancient world.

We’ve always been keen to approach the ancient world with a broad gaze, so it’s not surprising that two of our longest-running monograph series aren’t what you might call classic Classics. Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Persia explores the history and culture of the ancient Persian world, while our flagship classical reception series Screening Antiquity has created a space for innovative research on the afterlife of the classical tradition in screen media.

Broader trends within the discipline have encouraged us to question who we are thinking of when we think of ancient people, allowing us to consider the experience of a broad spectrum of marginalised communities within the ancient world. Our Intersectionality in Classical Antiquity series launched in 2020 and includes innovative books such as Exploring Gender Diversity in the Ancient World (Allison Surtees & Jennifer Dyer (eds.)) and Marginalised Populations in the Ancient Greek World by Carrie L. Sulosky Weaver, and around the same time we started the Edinburgh Studies in Ancient Slavery series.

Some of our other recent series explore more traditional areas of ancient world studies from new perspectives, including Ancient Culture, New Materialisms, New Approaches to Ancient Greek Institutional History, The Edinburgh History of Honour in the Ancient Greek World, Edinburgh Studies in Religion in Antiquity and our latest series, Edinburgh Studies in Hellenistic History and Culture. Meanwhile, another major strand of our publishing considers the world of late antiquity and the early medieval period, with series such as Edinburgh Studies in Later Latin Literature, Edinburgh Byzantine Studies and Global Histories of Premodern Health and Healing.

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis; how is the list evolving?

As we move into 2024 and beyond, with a dedicated full-time commissioning editor for Ancient History and Classical Studies, our list is set to expand further. We’ve modified our list name (for two decades it was Classics and Ancient History) in an attempt to decouple the breadth of the ancient world from the specific (and contentious) nature of the classical tradition.

By putting Ancient History first, we aim to make a statement that the list encompasses the study of ancient people from beyond the classical hubs of Greece and Rome. This is reflected in our current publishing, with recently published book Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea by Petya Andreeva and our well-established Ancient Persia series, and with future publications exploring ancient and premodern Eurasia and China. We are of course very aware of the long tradition of study of the Classics at Edinburgh, and the current and future trajectory of the list will continue to re-examine and re-engage with traditional topics within Classical Studies too, albeit with a modern and dynamic perspective.