dr. J.W. (Jan Willem) Drijvers

Since 1991 I was a member of the Dutch Ammianus Marcellinus research group, consisting of two latinists and two ancient historians. As a group we publish philological and historical commentaries on the historical work of Ammianus Marcellinus. The fourth-century historian wrote a history of the Roman empire of which only the books 14-31 have survived which deals with the historical events of the years 354-478 (Books 14-31). In 2017 the project was completed with the publication of the commentray on Book 31; https://brill.com/search?f_0=title&level=parent&pubschedule_1=upcoming&pubschedule_2=new&pubschedule_3=published&q_0=Ammianus+Marcellinus.

In the coming years I intend to do more work on the culture of leadership in the Late Roman Empire, in particular the representation and perception of late-antique imperial rule. In this context I wrote a monograph on the emperor Jovian (363-364) entitled The Forgotten Reign of Jovian: History and Fiction, which was published by Oxford University Press in 2022 in the series Oxford Studies in Late Antiquity.

I am furthermore interested in the interstices between historiography and fiction, historical fiction as a historical source, such as the late-antique legends of the discovery of the Cross and the so-called Syriac Julian Romance, a fictitious work about the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363).

In collaboration with Roger Rees (St. Andrews) I working on a philological and historical commentary on the panegyric for Constantine of 313 (Pan. Lat. 12.[9]); https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/panegyric/

Current and recently finished PhD theses (promotor/supervisor)

- Jeffrey Schulman, Anchoring a New Empire: the Representation of the Past in the Panegyrici Latini.

- Raf Praet, Finding the Present in the Distant Past: The Cultural Meaning of Antiquarianism in Late Antiquity (4-7th c. AD). This PhD research is part of the  FWO-NWO project "Finding the Present in the Distant Past" in collaboration with Peter van Nuffelen of the University of Ghent (2018).

- Lorenzo Focanti, Finding the Present in the Distant Past: The Cultural Meaning of Antiquarianism in Late Antiquity (4-7th c. AD). This PhD research is part of the  FWO-NWO project "Finding the Present in the Distant Past" in collaboration with Peter van Nuffelen of the University of Ghent (2018).

- Tjark Blokzijl, Bouwen aan het Principaat. Lokale elites en monumentale cultuur in Romeins Umbrië (2021).