Dr Matteo Zaccarini (PhD)

Research Fellow ERC Project Honour in Classical Greece; Greek history

Biography

Background

Born and bred in Italy, near Ravenna, I received my BA/MA in Cultural Heritage and Ancient History at the University in Bologna. I hold a co-tutelle PhD/Dottorato di Ricerca in Ancient History from King’s College London and the University in Bologna, with a doctoral partnership with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I have carried out postdoctoral research periods at Bologna-Ravenna, Verona, Birkbeck College, and Edinburgh (IASH).

Responsibilities & affiliations

Currently, I am an Adjunct Professor (Greek history) in Bologna (Ravenna), students tutor (Bologna, Greek and Latin Summer school), peer reviewer for the National Science Centre of Poland (NCN), and author/copyeditor for the Brill’s New Jacoby digital project. 

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

  • Classical-period Greek history, esp. regarding Athens and Sparta
  • Democracy in the late 6th-5th century
  • Ancient historiography
  • Greek military leadership and discipline
  • Xenophon, esp. the Cyropaedia and the Anabasis

Research summary

Places: 

  • Europe
  • Mediterranean

Themes: 

  • Ancient Civilisations
  • Culture
  • Ideas
  • Politics
  • War

Periods: 

  • Antiquity

Research interests

My research focuses on archaic and classical Greek history, ancient historiography, and the idealisation of the Greek past in sources up to the Imperial period (especially Plutarch).

I am especially interested in fifth-century Greek history in the period between the Persian wars and the Peloponnesian war, as well as in the intellectual discourse on the notions of democracy, oligarchy, and political power in general in the fifth and fourth century. I also devote an interest to classical reception, especially in relation to the modern and contemporary European thought, popular media, and built cultural heritage.

Current research interests

I am a Research Fellow in the ERC project Honour in Classical Greece, working on the status and recognition of high-ranking military officers (esp. the strategoi) in Classical Athens and more generally in Greece. My research will focus on the social role and political activity of the strategoi, both as individuals and as members of a small board of peers, aiming to explore the complex interactions that determined their status, as well as the way their status affected their ability to influence city politics. I will also deal with the institutional relationships between the strategoi and the governing bodies of the Greek polis.

Project activity

Honour in Classical Greece: esteem, status, identity, and society in ancient Greek literature, life, and thought (http://research.shca.ed.ac.uk/honour-in-greece/) (current)

Emotions through Time: from Antiquity to Byzantium (http://emotions.shca.ed.ac.uk/) (past)

The list below is a subset of the information held on the University of Edinburgh PURE system, and includes Books, Chapters, Articles and Conference contributions. For a full list, including details of other publication types (e.g. reviews), please see the Edinburgh Research Explorer page for Dr Matteo Zaccarini.

Books - Authored

Zaccarini, M. (2017) The Lame Hegemony: Cimon of Athens and the Failure of Panhellenism, ca. 478-450 BC. Bologna: Bononia University Press

Zaccarini, M. (2009) Feste Delfiche (1927 e 1930): Fotografie dagli Archivi Storici del Museo Benaki di Atene. Imola (Bo), Italy: Mandragora

Articles

Zaccarini, M. (2020) Aristide il Giusto e l’arche ateniese: La giustizia al potere. Rivista di Filologia e Istruzione Classica, 148, pp. 5-33

Zaccarini, M. (2020) Lista dei caduti in guerra della tribù Eretteide. Axon, 4(1), pp. 51-86DOI: https://doi.org/10.30687/Axon/2532-6848/2020/01/003

Zaccarini, M. (2019) “La più grande e bella tra le gesta". Plutarco e la monomachia. Revue internationale d'Histoire Militaire Ancienne, 8, pp. 151-169

Zaccarini, M. (2018) The fate of the lawgiver: The invention of the reforms of Ephialtes and the patrios politeia. Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 67(4), pp. 495-512DOI: https://doi.org/10.25162/historia-2018-0020

Zaccarini, M. (2018) The Athens of the North? Scotland and the national struggle for the Parthenon, its marbles, and its identity. Aevum. Rassegna di Scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche, 92(1), pp. 179-195DOI: https://doi.org/10.26350/000193_000016

Zaccarini, M. (2018) What’s love got to do with it? Eros, democracy, and Pericles’ rhetoric. Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 58(4), pp. 473-489

Zaccarini, M. (2015) The return of theseus to Athens: A case study in layered tradition and reception. HISTOS, 9, pp. 174-198

Zaccarini, M. (2014) La battaglia all'Eurimedonte in Diodoro e Plutarco: Ricezione, modello e frammenti ‘cumulativi’ di storiografia di IV secolo. Rivista storica dell’Antichità, 44(XLIV/2014), pp. 165-184

Zaccarini, M. (2013) Dalla ‘triere leggera’ alla ‘triere pesante’: L’evoluzione della marina ateniese tra Temistocle e Cimone. Rivista di Studi militari, 2, pp. 7-27

Iannucci, A., Parmeggiani, A. and Zaccarini, M. (2011) E-learning in humanities in Italian universities: A preliminary report. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 28, pp. 729-738DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.11.135

Zaccarini, M. (2011) The case of Cimon: The evolution of the meaning of philolaconism in Athens. Hormos. Ricerche di storia antica, 3, pp. 287-304

Chapters

Zaccarini, M. (2017) Lista dei caduti in guerra della tribù Eretteide. In: Antonetti, C. and De Vido, S. (eds.) Iscrizioni greche: Un'antologia. Rome: Carocci Editore, pp. 93

Zaccarini, M. (2017) The stoa of the Herms in context: (Re)shaping paradigms. In:  Greek Art in Context: Archaeological and Art Historical Perspectives. Routledge, pp. 132-141

Zaccarini, M. (2016) La prova dell’estraneo: L’identità di Soloi di Cilicia tra Greci e barbari. In: Prandi, L. (ed.) Culture egemoniche e culture locali: Discontinuità e persistenze nel Mediterraneo antico. Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, pp. 91-111

Zaccarini, M. (2014) Thucydides’ narrative on naval warfare: Epibatai, military theory, ideology. In: Lee, G., Whittaker, H. and Wrightson, G. (eds.) Ancient Warfare: Introducing Current Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 210-228

Conference contribution

Zaccarini, M., Iannucci, A., Orlandi, M., Vandini, M. and Zambruno, S. (2013) A multi-disciplinary approach to the preservation of cultural heritage: A case study on the Piazzetta degli Ariani, Ravenna. In:  Proceedings of the DigitalHeritage 2013 - Federating the 19th Int'l VSMM, 10th Eurographics GCH, and 2nd UNESCO Memory of the World Conferences, Plus Special Sessions fromCAA, Arqueologica 2.0 et al., pp. 337-340DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/DigitalHeritage.2013.6744775

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