Miko Flohr is a lecturer in Ancient History studying the social and economic history of the Greco-Roman world, with a special interest in urban commerce and everyday work in Roman Italy, particularly in Pompeii, Ostia and Rome. Educated as a classicist, and with a Ph.D. in archaeology, he teaches on urban, social and political history of the Greco-Roman world from an interdisciplinary perspective, from the belief that the future of Ancient History lies in integrating textual and material sources.

More information about Miko Flohr

I am a lecturer in Ancient History with a research focus on the urban, social and economic history of the Greco-Roman world. I studied Classics and subsequently completed a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology, both in Nijmegen, and was Assistant Director of the Oxford Roman Economy Project before moving to Leiden in 2013. 

Curriculum vitae

After studying Classics in Nijmegen, I did a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology at Radboud University (Supervisors: Moormann & De Haan), Nijmegen, which I completed in 2010. From 2010 until 2013, I was assistant director of the Oxford Roman Economy Project at the Faculty of Classics of the University of Oxford (led by Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson), and Supernumerary Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.

Research

My dissertation, The World of the Fullo. Work Economy and Society in Roman Italy (OUP 2013), was a study in the archaeology and history of urban manufacturing in particularly Pompeii, Ostia and Rome, and was followed by an NWO VENI-project on the emergence and history of the ‘taberna’ in Roman Italy (2013-2017), and by volumes on urban craftsmen and traders (ed., with Andrew Wilson, OUP 2016), and on The Economy of Pompeii (ed., with Andrew Wilson, OUP 2017). In recent years, I have also published on Roman textile economies, and on the economics of domestic decoration (AJA 123.1, 2019). I am currently preparing a monograph on architecture and commerce in Roman Italy, and working on projects about houses and inequality and technological innovation. Key question underlying most of this research is the impact of Roman imperial hegemony on urban communities and everyday life, and the extent to which this shapes the archaeological and epigraphic record.

Teaching

My teaching covers a broad range of themes. I have taught courses on the history of money, on urban change in the Hellenistic world, on the demography of the Roman metropolis, on ancient Mediterranean ‘globalization’, and on the Emperor in the Roman world. In 2019, I will be teaching on urban monumentalization, and on Roman Italy. I am available for supervision on a wide range of topics, including those listed below. 

Fields of Interest

Roman History; Roman Empire; Hellenistic World; ancient geography; urbanism and urban communities; urban space; houses and domestic life; funerary culture; textiles and dress; economic history; ancient technology and innovation; crafts and manufacturing; Hellenistic and Roman trade; Roman emperorship; the Roman army; Roman Italy; the provinces of the Roman west; Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor; Pompeii, Ostia, Rome, Delos; urban archaeology; material culture.

Publications

Activities