Dr Paul Millett
Subject
College Position
Emeritus Fellow
University Position
University Senior Lecturer in Classics
Other Positions

MCR Liaison Fellow

Degrees and Honours

MA, PhD

Research Interests

Having read for both the Economics and Classical Triposes here at Cambridge, I suppose I am best described as an Ancient Economic Historian (of the Greek world). In fact, for the Classical world, it is impossible to separate off economy from society. So my work on money, banking, credit and debt in ancient Athens tries to demonstrate how lending and borrowing created connexions of reciprocity between friends, neighbours, and fellow-citizens in general. I have also worked on peasant communities in early Greece and the character of Athenian democracy. My interest in Athenian has recently resulted in a piece reassessing the Trial of Socrates. A paper on the Agora (town square) of Athens is planned to develop into a book on the ancient city of Athens. Of course, Classics is about far more than the ancient world itself. An ongoing project is the presentation of Classical themes in Punch magazine across its hundred-and-fifty-year history. This will include a chapter demonstrating Winston Churchill's manipulation through his life of his alleged antipathy towards the Classics.

Select Publications

1. 'Aristotle and Athenian slavery', Greece and Rome (2007)

2. Theophrastus and his world. Cambridge Classical Journal Supplementary Volume 32

3. 'Sir Alfred Zimmern's Greek Commonwealth revisited' in C. Stray (ed.) Oxford Classics, Duckworth 2007.

4. ‘The Trial of Socrates Revisited’ in European Review of History 12 (2005) 23-62.

5. ‘The Economy’ in Ancient Greece (ed. R. Osborne), Vol.I of The Shorter Oxford History of Europe 23-51 (2000) Oxford.

6. Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens (1991) Cambridge.

7. Nomos: Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society, contains: ‘Law, society and Athens’ (with S. Todd) 1-18; ‘Sale, credit and exchange in Athenian law and society’ 167-94 (1990) Cambridge.

8. Kosmos: Studies in Interpersonal Relations in Ancient Greece, containing chapter ‘Encounters in the Agora’ 203-28 (1988) Cambridge.