Cam Grey

Visiting Assistant Professor of Roman History
Departments of History and Classics
office: Judd 317
phone: 773 834 7595
cgrey@uchicago.edu

FIELDS OF EXPERTISE

Roman social and economic history, particularly how non-elite and rural communities function, and what happens when consensus breaks down. Historiography in and of the ancient world. I am currently revising my doctoral dissertation, ‘Peasants, Patronage and Taxation, c. 280 - c. 480 C.E.’ for publication, as well as developing a project on violence, dissent and demonic possession in late Roman rural communities.

EDUCATION

• Ph. D., St John’s College, Cambridge
  Dissertation title: ‘Peasants, patronage and taxation c. 280 – c. 480.’
• M. Phil, Sydney University, Australia
  Dissertation title: ‘The peasant economy and agricultural crisis in fifth-century A. D. Italy and Gaul’
• BA in Ancient History (minor in Archaeology), Auckland University, New Zealand

AWARDS

• Poynton Scholarship, Cambridge University, 1998-2001
• University Medal for M. Phil. Dissertation, Sydney University 1997
• Senior Scholar in Ancient History, Auckland University, 1994
• Offered University of Auckland Masters/Honours Scholarship for 1995 (declined)

PUBLICATIONS

• ‘Review: T. Parkin, Old Age in the Roman World’, CP (forthcoming).
• ‘Controlling the urban mob: the colonatus perpetuus of CTh 14.18.1’, with A. R. Parkin, Phoenix 57 284-99 (2003).
• ‘Letters of recommendation and the circulation of rural labourers in the late Roman West’, in L. Ellis and F. L. Kidner, eds., Travel, Communication and Geography in Late Antiquity, Ashgate (forthcoming, 2004), 22-37.
• ‘Review: W. Scheidel and S. von Reden, eds. The Ancient Economy’, Prudentia 35.2, 202-3 (2003).
• ‘Review: J. Banaji, Agrarian Change in late Antiquity: gold, labour and aristocratic dominance’, EcHR 56.2, 379-80 (2003).
• Chronological Survey for Cambridge Ancient History vol. 12, AD 192 – AD 337 (forthcoming).
• ‘P. Garnsey and C. Humfress, The Evolution of the Late Antique World’, Ad Familiares, (September 2002).
• ‘Review: E. Metzger, ed., A Companion to Justinian’s Institutes’, Prudentia 31.1, 46-47 (1999).
• ‘Review: P. Cox Millar, Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture’, Prudentia 31.2, 149-152 (1999).
• ‘Review: M. Mirkovic, The Later Roman Colonate and Freedom’, Prudentia 30.2, 68-72 (1998).

PAPERS PRESENTED—A SELECTION

• ‘Social Rationality and Fiscal Registration in a letter of Sidonius Apollinaris’, Late Antiquity in Illinois, UIUC (March, 2004).
• ‘Agri Deserti and Field Management Techniques in the late Roman Empire’, 135th Annual APA, San Francisco, CA (January, 2004).
• ‘Towards a multivocal reading of demonic possession in the late Roman West’, Late Antique and Byzantine Workshop, University of Chicago (October, 2003).
• ‘Rhetoric and Reality in Salvian of Marseille’s Portrayal of the Poor’, Poverty in the Roman World, Cambridge, UK (July, 2003).
• ‘Victims of Demonic Possession, Exploiters of Circumstances?’, Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity V, UCSB (March, 2003).
• ‘Controlling the urban mob: the colonatus perpetuus of CTh 14.18.1’, Late Antique and Byzantine Workshop, University of Chicago (October, 2002).
• ‘CTh XIV.18.1: Urban beggars, rural tenants and the problem of colonatus perpetuus’, 133rd Annual APA Conference, Philadelphia, PA (January, 2002).
• ‘In search of late Roman rural labour relations… still’, Ancient History Seminar, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (November, 2001).
• ‘The colonates of the late Roman Empire’, Classics Department, Reading University (November, 2001).
• ‘Factions and Fictions: the appearance of dissent in early Byzantine hagiographies’, Interdisciplinary Seminar, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (June, 2001).
• ‘Circulation of rural labourers in the late Roman West: the evidence of the letters’, Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity IV, San Francisco State University (March, 2001).
• ‘The Roman Western: An Examination of Genre’, Interdisciplinary Seminar, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (November, 2000).
• ‘Dominus and patronus in late Roman rural contexts’, Department of Ancient History, Sydney University (September. 2000).
• ‘476 and All That: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in 27 minutes’, Interdisciplinary Seminar, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (May, 2000).
• ‘The organisation of space: land ownership and tenancy in the late Roman period’, Interdisciplinary Seminar, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (October, 1999).

PANELS AND WORKSHOPS

• ‘Two Perspectives on Classical Archaeology: Daily Life and Marital Strife’, 2003 Fall Classics Convivium, University of Chicago (November, 2003).
• ‘How I write non-elite history and why’, Graduate Historiography Workshop, University of Chicago, April 2003.
• Invited Panelist, ‘Ancient History and Interdisciplinary Research: Future Prospects’, Annual Meeting of graduate students in Ancient History (Britain and Ireland), Oxford (March, 2001).
• ‘The Roman defeat at Hadrianople: representations, repercussions, reverberations’, Open Day for Classics Teachers, Faculty of Classics, Cambridge (August, 2000).

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