Luuk de Ligt is a professor at the Institute for History.

More information about Luuk de Ligt

Spreekuur / Hours

Tuesday 1pm - 2pm

Fields of interest

Main research foci in recent years: social and economic history, demography, Roman republic, legal sources, and epigraphy. Wider interests: aristocratic and democratic notions of equality; Thucydides’ conviction that politicians should pursue their goals rationally, combined with his realization that irrational motives will always play a part; the economic foundations of large pre-industrial empires; social mobility and its perception by contemporaries; Rome, the largest city of European history before AD 1800; flexible and multiple identities in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds; the stunning capacity of the Roman jurists to say so much using very few words.

Between 2004 and 2009 Professor de Ligt was in charge of the VICI project ‘Peasants, citizens and soldiers: the effects of demographic growth in Roman Republican Italy (201-88 BC)’. During this period he also co-edited four volumes of the Dutch translation of the Justinianic Corpus Iuris Civilis. At present he is running a large project on migration and the urban labour market in early-imperial Italy.

Major publications

(2012) de Ligt, L.,  Peasants, Citizens and Soldiers. Studies in the Demographic History of Roman Italy 225 BC-AD 100, Cambridge. 

(2005-2011) Spruit, J.E., Chorus, J.M.J. en de Ligt, L. (eds.), Corpus Iuris Civilis. Tekst en Vertaling: Codex Iustinianus, 3 vols, Amsterdam.

(2008) de Ligt, L. en Northwood (eds.), People, Land and Politics. Demographic Developments and the Transformation of Roman Italy, 300 BC-AD 14, Leiden.

(2004), de Ligt L, Hemelrijk EA, Singor HW (eds.), Roman Rule and Civic Life: Local and Regional Perspectives, Amsterdam.

(2002) de Ligt L, de Ruiter J, et al. (eds.), Viva vox iuris Romani. Essays in honour of Johannes Emil Spruit, de Ligt L, de Ruiter J, et al. (eds.), Amsterdam.

Publications