Andrew Bayliss

I’ve been obsessed with Ancient History since I learned about the last stand of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae when I was twelve. I studied Ancient History for my BA at Macquarie University in Australia, stayed on there for my PhD, before I had the opportunity to further my research at the British School at Athens. After moving to the UK I worked at the Department of Classics at Nottingham before coming to the University of Birmingham.

My current research centres on Classical Spartan society. I am particularly interested in the mindset of Spartan citizens, and am currently compiling a database of ancient references to Spartan emotions, actions and attitudes. My research on Sparta naturally extends to the helots, and I am particularly interested in the rural hinterlands of Spartan territory where helots lived and laboured for their abusive masters.

My previous publications have focused on the swearing of oaths in ancient Greece, Athenian history, politics, and epigraphy, the Successors of Alexander the Great, and Eighteenth-century perceptions of ancient Greece.