Rate My Professor Lea Beness

Lea Beness serves as Honorary Associate Professor in the Department of Ancient History within the School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts at Macquarie University. She has held the position of Associate Professor and previously as Senior Lecturer and Convenor of the Department of Ancient History. With more than thirty years of dedication to academia, Beness has contributed extensively to teaching courses such as AHIX110: The Fall of the Roman Republic, community outreach programs, postgraduate student supervision, and mentoring in ancient history and classical studies. Her academic career at Macquarie University underscores her commitment to advancing knowledge in ancient world studies.

Beness's research interests center on Roman Republican politics, gender dynamics in the Graeco-Roman world, the history of women scholars in Ancient World Studies, and landscape archaeology, with a particular emphasis on ancient harbours. She has developed a strong publication profile, often in collaboration with Tom Hillard, exploring themes in late Republican Rome. Key publications include 'The Theatricality of the Deaths of C. Gracchus and Friends' (Classical Quarterly, 2001), 'The Punishment of the Gracchani and the Execution of C. Villius in 133/2' (Antichthon, 2000), 'Carbo's tribunate of 129 and the associated Dicta Scipionis' (Antichthon, 2009), 'A prehistory of Roman domestic violence' (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, 2023), '133 BCE: politics in a time of challenge and crisis' (2022), 'Contested memories: Scipionic and Gracchan matronae' (2026), 'The coastal topography of ancient Torone' (2011), 'From Marius to Sulla: part 1' (2011), 'Wronging Sempronia' (Antichthon, 2016), 'The biography and influence of Fulvia' (2022), 'Fulvia and the cheeky rhetor (Suet. Rhet. 5)' (2023), and 'Rape in the Greek and Roman World' (2000). Beness received the Faculty of Arts Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning. She co-presented the 21st A.D. Trendall Lecture and has served in judging capacities, such as for the Australasian Society for Classical Studies OPTIMA competition.