Dr Emma Nicholson

I am a historian of ancient history, specialising in Hellenistic history and historiography, the ancient historian Polybius of Megalopolis, Philip V of Macedon, the Antigonid kings of ancient Macedonia, the coming of Rome into the Greek East, and ancient leadership.

I am the director of Exeter's Centre for Hellenistic and Later Greek Studies, as well as that of the international research community - The Antigonid Network - which promotes the study of the Antigonid kings of ancient Macedonia and their influence on the Mediterranean, past and present.

My book Philip V of Macedon in Polybius' Histories: Politics, History, and Fiction was published with OUP in February 2023.

My current projects include a volume on Polybius for the New Surveys in the Classics series, a book on the Antigonid dynasty co-written with Dr Annelies Cazemier (Southampton) (under contract with Routledge), and two edited volumes, Stranger Kings in Antiquity (under contract with Routledge) and Literary Genre and Leadership Values in Antiquity (under contract with Bloomsbury).

Biography:

As a child, I grew up in Taiwan and Berkshire (UK). I studied for my BA in Ancient History at Royal Holloway, University of London and completed my MA via the London intercollegiate programme. After an interim in industry and teaching in China, I started my PhD at Newcastle University in 2012, fully funded by an AHRC Doctoral Fellowship and specialising in Polybius and Philip V of Macedon. In 2015, I also received funding from the AHRC and the DAAD to visit Friedrich-Alexander Universitaet in Erlangen-Nuremberg, Freiburg University, and the University of Bologna. After completing my PhD, I taught at Newcastle (2015-2016) and Edinburgh (2016-2017), before coming to the University of Exeter in September 2017. I was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2022.