I entered the Classics Department’s PhD program in 1979, after earning BA and MA degrees in History at Bowling Green. George Kustas directed my 1985 dissertation, The Historical Fragments of Eunapius of Sardis. Since 1983, I have been on the faculty at Canisius College, where I am chair of the Classics Department. My most recent publications include a series of entries in Brill’s New Jacoby and The History of Zonaras (Routledge 2009). I am currently working on a translation of and commentary on the historical fragments of Peter the Patrician.
I was attracted to the Classics PhD program at Buffalo because it combined excellent training in Latin, Greek, and a range of fundamental sub-disciplines such as epigraphy with an exposure to innovative approaches to the ancient world. Of the courses I took, Bob Sherk’s on Greek biography, Greek epigraphy, and the Athenaiôn Politeia, Charles Garton’s on Aristophanes, George Kustas’s on Ammianus Marcellinus, and Leendert Westerink’s on Cicero’s De Natura Deorum had the greatest impact on me. The highlight of my teaching was a course on Athenian imperialism offered at the height of the Iran hostage crisis. Jack Peradotto, Tom Barry, Evelyn Smithson, Ron Zirin, luminaries from other departments, and a regular contingent of classics graduate students —Stephen Armstead, Dave Davies, Keith Dickson, Madeleine Kaufman, and Tom Virginia, among others—made every lunch in some way memorable.
