Steven D. Smith

Curriculum Vitae

Steven D. Smith is the William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University. He grew up in Central New York and began his education in Classical Studies at Hobart College (B.A. magna cum laude, 1996). He received his Ph.D. from Boston University in 2004 and is thrilled to be back in his home department. Before returning to Boston, Professor Smith spent two decades at Hofstra University, where he held the John Cranford Adams Endowed Chair in the Humanities (2017-2023), and where he was named Teacher of the Year in 2023. He is the author of Greek Identity and the Athenian Past in Chariton (Barkhuis, 2007) and Man and Animal in Severan Rome: The Literary Imagination of Claudius Aelianus (Cambridge, 2014). In 2020, Professor Smith received the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit for his book Greek Epigram and Byzantine Culture: Gender, Desire, and Denial in the Age of Justinian (Cambridge, 2019).

Professor Smith specializes in Greek literature of the Roman Empire, from the age of the so-called “Second Sophistic” to the middle Byzantine period. His work focuses on gender and sexuality, the interface between Greek and non-Greek cultural traditions, identity and self-formation, and the relationship between humans and non-human animals. More recently, Professor Smith has begun comparative analysis of the Greek and Indic story traditions and welcomes students who would like to pursue studies in both Greek and Sanskrit.

Professor Smith has worked on the ancient novel, animal narratives and miscellanies, fictional epistolography, and early Byzantine historiography. The poetry of the early Byzantine period is of particular interest, especially Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, epigrams, verse descriptions of later Roman art and buildings, and the narrative hymns of Romanus the Melode. Professor Smith is currently at work on an English translation and book-length study of the fictional Letters by the seventh century historian Theophylact Simocatta, the last representative of Greco-Roman sophistic culture in late antiquity.

Research Interests

Greek literature of the Roman Empire; Byzantine literature; gender and sexuality in antiquity; connections between the Greek and Sanskrit narrative traditions

Recent Publications

“Love, Desire and Erotics,” in Emma Greensmith (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Epic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024, pp. 334-355.

“Theophylact Simocatta: Zoological Lore and Sophistic Culture at the End of Antiquity,” in Oliver Hellmann and Arnaud Zucker (eds.), Zoological Knowledge in Late Antiquity and the Byzantine Period. AKAN-Einzelschriften. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2023, pp. 83-102.

“Is Diogenes in Love with a Eunuch? The Erotic Subtext of Theophylact Simocatta Ep. 43,” in Tiziana Drago and Owen Hodkinson (eds.), Ancient Love Letters: Form, Theme, Approaches. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2023, pp. 237-254.

“Epigrammatic Commemoration in the Histories of Agathias,” Aevum Antiquum, n.s. 22 (2022): pp. 173-184.

“A Question of Breeding: Aelian, Aristotle, and Alexander in India (NA 8.1),” in Diego DiBrasi (ed.), Poikile Physis. Biological Literature in Greek During the Roman Empire: Genres, Scopes, and Problems. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter, 2022, pp. 13-32.

“The Chaste Bee and the Promiscuous Bee in John of Gaza’s Ekphrasis and the Cycle of Agathias,” in Jesús Hernández Lobato and Oscar Prieto Domínguez (eds.), Literature Squared: Self-Reflexivity in Late Antique Literature; Studi e Testi Tardoantichi 18. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020, pp. 131-150.

“Gilgamos in Rome: Aelian NA 12.21,” in Alice König, Rebecca Langlands, and James Uden (eds.), Literary and Cultural Interactions in the Roman Empire: 96-235. Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 328-343.