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Professor Peter Thonemann FBA

The history, epigraphy, and coinage of the Greek world, particularly Asia Minor, from the Archaic period to Late Antiquity; Lucian of Samosata, and other Greek literature of the Roman imperial period.
Headshot of Professor Peter Thonemann FBA
Fellow type
UK Fellow
Year elected
2025
Honours
FBA
Sections
Classical Antiquity
Website
https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/people/dr-peter-thonemann

Summary

Peter Thonemann (b. 1978) studied Classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford (1997–2001), and wrote his DPhil thesis while a prize fellow at All Souls College (2002–2007).

Since 2007 he has been the Forrest-Derow Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at Wadham College, Oxford. He has published widely on the history and archaeology of Asia Minor in antiquity ('The Maeander Valley', 2011; 'The Lives of Ancient Villages', 2022), and he has a particular interest in epigraphic documents from central and western Anatolia ('Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua XI', 2013; Teos and Abdera, 2022 [with Mustafa Adak]).

He is also interested in Greek literature of the Roman imperial period ('An Ancient Dream Manual', 2020; 'Lucian: Alexander or the False Prophet', 2021) and is currently working on a new Loeb edition of the works of Lucian of Samosata (Vols. 1 and 2, 2026). He was Editor of the Journal of Roman Studies from 2020–2023, and is Editor of the Routledge History of the Ancient World.

He is a member of the Academia Europaea (2016) and a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute (2024).

Current post

University of Oxford Professor of Ancient History

Wadham College, Oxford Forrest-Derow Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History

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