Rate My Professor Caillan Davenport

Professor Caillan Davenport is Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies at the Australian National University, within the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics. He earned his BA (Hons) and MPhil from the University of Queensland, where he studied Latin, Ancient Greek, and Ancient History, receiving the University Medal in Latin. With the support of a John Crampton Travelling Scholarship, he completed his DPhil in Ancient History at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Alan Bowman. Prior to joining ANU in January 2022, he held positions at the University of Queensland (2011–2017) and Macquarie University (2017–2021), and served as an Alexander von Humboldt Experienced Researcher Fellow at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.

Davenport specializes in ancient Mediterranean politics, government, and monarchy from 1200 BC to AD 600, Roman history from the Archaic period to Late Antiquity, emperors and their reception, imperial court society, comparative monarchy and courts, rumour and gossip, inscriptions and coins, Greek and Latin historiography, Christianity in imperial politics, and Roman letter writing including the correspondence of Marcus Aurelius and Fronto. His major publications include the monograph A History of the Roman Equestrian Order (Cambridge University Press, 2019), winner of the Royal Historical Society's Gladstone Prize; Behind Caesar's Back: Rumor, Gossip, and the Making of the Roman Emperors (Yale University Press, 2026); Fronto: Selected Letters (co-translated and edited with J. Manley, Bloomsbury, 2014); and edited volumes The Roman Imperial Court in the Principate and Late Antiquity (with M. McEvoy, Oxford University Press, 2023), Representing Rome's Emperors (with S. Malik, Oxford University Press, 2024), and Emperors and Political Culture in Cassius Dio's Roman History (with C. Mallan, Cambridge University Press, 2021). He edits Antichthon, journal of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies. Awards include an ARC Future Fellowship (2025–2029) for 'Why Monarchy Endures', ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award, Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, FAHA, and FRHistS. Davenport contributes to public outreach through 15 articles in The Conversation, ABC Radio appearances, museum lectures, school workshops, and the Emperors of Rome Podcast.