About
I started out as an Oxford-trained classicist and ancient historian, with a particular interest in the pre-Macedonian fourth century and the writings of Xenophon of Athens. In the early 1980s - under the influence of the Groningen-based Achaemenid History Workshop (1983-1990) - I began to work on the Achaemenid Persian Empire, and this has been a major element in my academic profile since that time. In addition to various other projects I was engaged for many years in writing and editing material for C.J.Tuplin & J.Ma (edd.), Arshama and Egypt: The Bodleian Letters in Context (OUP 2020) -- the multi-author published outcome of an AHRC-funded project which ran in Oxford in 2010-2011. My major project now is a large-scale commentary on Xenophon's Anabasis.