Christopher Mallan

At UWA, I teach and write about the ancient world of Greece and Rome. I am also currently the Deputy Head of School for Learning and Teaching and the Chair of the Department of Classical and Historical Studies. In 2024 I was appointed to the Cassamarca Chair in Latin Humanism. 

I was educated in Australia and in the UK. I received my DPhil from the University of Oxford (Wadham College). Before that I studied at the University of Queensland, where I received my BA (Hons. I) and MPhil. I joined the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia in 2018. 

When I am not thinking about the Roman Empire, I enjoy cricket (playing - badly), reading (mid-20th century English novels), and listening to music (preferably baroque or Classical). 

I am an ancient historian who works in the areas of Roman Imperial History, Historiography and the reception of the Greco-Roman historiographical tradition in Byzantium (and beyond). I am particularly interested in the literary and rhetorical strategies employed by historians in their presentation of political history. 

My latest book project (co-edited with Eleanor Cowan) is titled Making Sense of Monarchy in the Roman World, 50 BC-AD100 (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2027). This volume brings together ten chapters which investigate how the advent of the Principate influenced ways writers thought about and approached mythological, historical and foreign monarchies. 

Alongside my work on ancient historiography, I have long had an interest in epitomes (abridged texts) of Imperial Greek authors produced in the medieval world. Working with colleagues from Cyprus, Greece, Germany, the USA, and the UK, I edited a collection of studies on abridged texts from Antiquity to fifteenth century Byzantium, titled Studies in Byzantine Epitomes and the Greek Epitomizing Tradition (Brill 2025). It is the first book-length work dedicated to Byzantine epitomes, and endeavours to open new approaches to such texts.  

The focus of much of my earlier research was on Greek Historiography and in particular the historian Cassius Dio. With Caillan Davenport, I edited Emperors and Political Culture in Cassius Dio's Roman History (Cambridge University Press, 2021). This volume focussed on the 'imperial' books of Dio's Roman History, and covered such topics as Dio's biographical and autobiographical techniques, his attitude to Roman citizenship, his portrayal of particular emperors, and his reception in Byzantium. 

My first book was a commentary on Books 57 and 58 of Cassius Dio, covering the reign of Tiberius (Cassius Dio. Roman History 57-58 The Reign of Tiberius), pubished by Oxford University Press (2020). This commentary was accompanied by a new translation of the Greek text, and was the first full translation of these two books in English since Cary's Loeb. 

Research Keywords: Roman Imperial History, Greco-Roman Historiography, Cassius Dio, Roman Political Thought, Byzantine Epitomes and Excerpta

• (edited with Eleanor Cowan) Making Sense of Monarchy (with contributions from: Rhiannon Ash, Kimberley Czajkowski, Robert Cowan, Elly Cowan, Shushma Malik, Elisabeth Slingsby, Nakeesha Radice, Liv Yarrow)
• A study of the Excerpta Antiqua 

I currently teach all the Roman History units offered at UWA. These units include:

• CLAN2002 Power and Politics in the Roman Empire, 44 BC - AD 68;
• CLAN3011 Sex, Gender, and the Body in the Greco-Roman World;
• CLAN3009 Religion, Society and the Divine in the Roman World: From Augustus to Muhammad.
• CLAN3008 Roman Britain

I also teach the Honours level historiography unit:

• CLAN4105 Literature, Narrative, History

Occasionally, I teach the following language units:

• CLAN1201 Greek 1
• CLAN3203 Greek 3

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). 

Current

• Deputy Head of School (Teaching and Learning) (2022- )
• Chair of the Department of Classical and Historical Studies (2025-)

Former

• Discipline Group Chair: Classics and Ancient History (2020-2022)
• Major Coordinator: Classics and Ancient History (2023 Jan-June)

College Lecturer in Ancient History, St Benet's Hall, University of Oxford (2015-2017)
College Lecturer in Roman History, The Queen's College, University of Oxford (2017)