Professor Chiara Meccariello

I received a PhD in Classics from the University of Pisa, and then held research and teaching positions in Vienna, Oxford, Goettingen and Cambridge, before moving to Exeter in 2022.

My research explores ancient cultural practices and their historical significance, drawing on both literary sources and papyrological evidence. Thanks to my technical training in Papyrology, I work on written artefacts to recover, decipher, interpret and contextualise primary material, combining a philological approach to ancient texts with the investigation of their contexts of use against the backdrop of broader socio-cultural dynamics. This approach informs all strands of my research, especially in the following interrelated areas:

• Ancient Greek education in its Afroeurasian context. Leveraging fragmentary written artefacts such as papyri and potsherds used by learners and teachers, I explore how educational practices evolved and adapted to diverse cultural and political contexts, particularly in Graeco-Roman Egypt. This is the topic of my project Education in Graeco-Roman Egypt: An Intercultural Approach, which has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant (2025-2030).
• Greek drama and its ancient reception. I examine how Greek drama was transmitted, reperformed and reimagined in antiquity, focusing on the interplay between innovation and tradition. This is the subject of my forthcoming book Tragic Papyri and the Art of (Re)Performance (under contract with Cambridge University Press).
• Paraliterary texts and ancient readers. This strand of my research investigates the explanatory texts that accompanied Greek poetry to reconstruct how ancient readers engaged with literature. These texts often changed shape to suit their users, and so I have become increasingly interested in how modern editorial practices can best capture their multiversion nature.

Selected publications

Books:

• Uses and Misuses of Ancient Mediterranean Sources: Erudition, Authority, Manipulation, edited with J. Singletary, Tübingen 2022.

• The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, edited with J.H. Brusuelas, London 2016.

• Le hypotheseis narrative dei drammi euripidei. Testo, contesto, fortuna, Rome 2014.

Journal articles:

• ‘Revival and Survival: The Lycurgan Exemplar and the Early Loss of Euripides’ Satyr Plays’, accepted for publication in Journal of Hellenic Studies.

• ‘Cooking up Homer: The Two Lives of Strato, Fr. 1 K.-A.’, accepted for publication in Classical Philology.

• ‘Theatre and Drama in the Ptolemaic Fayum. Notes on Papyri from the Zenon Archive’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 235 (forthcoming 2025).

• ‘Textual Notes on the New Euripides (P. Phil. Nec. 23 V)’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 232 (2024), 35-6.

• ‘Did Euripides’ Andromache Premiere Outside Athens?’, Classical Quarterly 73 (2023), 558-64.

• ‘Myth and Actuality at the School of Rhetoric: The Encomium on the Flower of Antinous in Its Cultural and Performative Context’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 113 (2023), 261-89.

• ‘The Fountain of Arsinoe in Supplementum Hellenisticum 978’, Segno e Testo 18 (2020), 1-16.

• ‘A Catalogue of Virtuous Women. Myth and Mythography in Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 4.19.118-123’, Vigiliae Christianae 74 (2020), 411-32.

• ‘The First Medea and the Other Heracles. On Alleged Double Versions of Euripidean Plays’, Philologus 163 (2019), 198-213.

• ‘Impulso mitografico e mitografia nelle pratiche educative greche antiche’, Polymnia 4 (2019), 147-75.

• ‘An Emendation in Apollonius Sophista’s Lexicon Homericum’, Classical Quarterly 67 (2017), 332-5.

• ‘Plutarch’s Sympotic Forge and a Variant Reading in P. Oxy. LXXVIII 5156’ (with J.H. Brusuelas), Archiv für Papyrusforschung 61 (2015), 37-52.

Book chapters:

• ‘Teaching Propaganda: Water, Food and Power in the Livre d’Ecolier’, in L. Del Corso/A. Ricciardetto, Greek Culture in Hellenistic Egypt: The Literary Experience, Berlin/Boston 2024, 295-310.

• ‘Tragic Mythography’, in S.M. Trzaskoma/R.S. Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Mythography, Oxford/New York 2022, 300-13.

• ‘Eight and Counting. New Insights on the Number and Early Transmission of Euripides’ Satyr Dramas’, in A. Antonopoulos et al. (eds.), Reconstructing Satyr Drama, Berlin/New York 2021, 283-302.

• ‘Well Begun is Half Done’? Uses and Misuses of Incipits in Greek Antiquity and Beyond’, in F. Ginelli/F. Lupi (eds.), Piecing the Past Together. The Continuity of Classical Literature through Fragmentary Traditions, Berlin/New York 2021, 57-77.

• ‘Title, Arche, Hypothesis. Notes on the Heading and Arrangement of the Euripidean Hypotheses on Papyrus’, in T. Derda et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the 27th Congress of Papyrology, vol. II, Warsaw 2016, 1185-200.

Editions of papyri:

• ‘P. Oxy. 0000. Prose on Heracles’, forthcoming in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Series.

• ‘1128. Theoxena’, in S. Schorn et al. (eds.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued. IV A: Biography, Leiden 2019, 213-24.

• ‘1136. On a Female Pupil of Plato, Speusippos, and Menedemos’, in S. Schorn et al. (eds.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued. IV A: Biography, Leiden 2019, 413-28.

• ‘1139. Miscellaneous Lives’ (with M. de Kreij), in S. Schorn et al. (eds.), Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker Continued. IV A: Biography, Leiden 2019, 479-577.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5266. Sophocles’ Philoctetes 104-7 etc.’ (with S. Bocksberger), in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 52-7.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5271. Pseudo-Plutarch, De Proverbiis Alexandrinorum 50?’ (with J.H. Brusuelas and G. Verhasselt), in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 67-70.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5283. Hypotheses of Euripides’ Bacchae and Other Plays’, in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 111-34.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5284. Hypotheses of Euripides’ Heracles and Other Plays’, in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 134-46.

• ‘P. Oxy. 5285. Hypotheses of Euripides’ Plays (More of LII 2455)’, in J.H. Brusuelas/C. Meccariello (eds.), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. LXXXI, London 2016, 146-51.

Book reviews:

• F. Favi, Epicarmo e pseudo-Epicarmo (frr. 240–297). Introduzione, traduzione e commento, Göttingen 2020, Gnomon 96 (2024), 652-5.

• L. Rocchi, Studies on P. Oxy. XXXI 2537, Berlin/Boston 2021, Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica 151 (2023), 518-22.

• A. Boschi, Crizia Tragico. Testimonianze e frammenti, Tivoli 2021, Lexis 39 (2022), 285-90.

• F. Montanari, The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek. Edited by M. Goh and C. Schroeder, Leiden/Boston 2015, Classical Review 68 (2018), 559-61.