World history, connectivity and material culture, edited by Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys. From Cambridge University Press.

As of May 2015, Prof. dr. Ad Ijzerman has been appointed as Secretary of The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.

The main objective of this research is to map out the cities of the Roman Near East in the imperial period, with a focus on location, city size and urban features, in order to study the form the urban system and its levels of integration.

To what extent was labour-induced migration important to the functioning of the towns and cities of Roman Italy?

Embracing the Provinces is a collection of essays focused on people and their daily lives living in the Roman provinces, c. 27 BC-AD 476. It offers an overview of current research on Roman provinces and frontiers, deconstructing some long-held preconceptions and providing refreshing insights into unexplored…

One of the three long-term research interests of our group concerns the Transformation of the Roman World (c AD 450-900).

In the History of the Roman Emperors, what does Herodian’s method of composition consist of and how does it relate to his writing intention, particularly in terms of political and moral idea(l)s?

Ancient historians have long been aware that patterns of coin circulation can shed light on levels of economic integration in the Roman Empire. More than forty years ago, Hopkins argued that large amounts of tax money were spent in the frontier provinces and that the non-military provinces recouped…

How can theories about modern disinformation help to understand how Roman documentary fictions functioned?

This volume considers the military architecture and its impact on local communities in Rome's eastern frontier, which stretched from the north-east shore of the Black Sea to the Red Sea.

Festival, Study trip Greek and Roman History 2026

This volume, featuring sixteen contributions from leading Roman historians and archaeologists, sheds new light on approaches to the economic history of urban craftsmen and traders in the Roman world, with a particular emphasis on the imperial period.

This website showcases Leiden University’s contribution to the SSH Sector Plans.

Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 4

How did the imperial administration of justice function during the reign of the Severans?

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.

How do we explain the fact that certain areas had many large cities, while other areas were studded with large numbers of small towns and yet other areas had very few urban agglomerations of any kind?

How did the slave peculium function in the socio-legal context of the Roman Empire?

The Iseum Campense, the impressive sanctuary for Isis and the Egyptian gods on the Campus Martius and arguably one of ancient Rome’s most notable absent presences, is a monument central to various debates.

The central aims of this project are to establish the shapes of the various urban hierarchies existing in the provinces of the Roman Empire and (especially) to use the quantitative properties of these hierarchies to shed new light on levels of economic integration.

What was the nature of the urban network in the Roman provinces of Germania Superior, Raetia and Noricum and how stood this in relation with economic and social developments?

On the 17th of June Rea Matsangou successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The Impact of Mobility and Migration in the Roman Empire assembles a series of papers on key themes in the study of Roman mobility and migration.

The principle aim of the project is to study the genesis and the quantitative properties of the Early Roman urban network of the Balkan and the Danube provinces.

This project aims to excavate and date the setting of the east gate of the Roman fortress of Udhruḥ. This will be compared with other Diocletianic military installations from the region. We also hope to retrieve another gate inscription which can shed light on the function and political embedding of…

Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 2

This publication by Cornelis van Tilburg, will be published at Sidestone Press on September 28, 2022. It discusses various aspects of city gates in the Western Roman Empire: Italy, Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain.

Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies 3

This research project analyses the use of different, often competing, stereotypical images of Rome in Humanist Latin Poetry, by considering it as strategic appropriation of the classical heritage.

This thesis analyses the existence and the functioning of the urban labour market in the early Roman empire by looking at the crucial influence of social structures, such as the family and non-familial labour collectives.

The main research objective is to map the cities of Roman Asia Minor in terms of location, size, urban amenities and juridical status, with the specific aim to understand the reasons how this urban settlement pattern arose.

The Leiden Greek and Roman History Team concentrates on the study of the economies, societies and cultures of the large empires of the Graeco-Roman world, starting with the empires of Alexander the Great and his successors.

Whether implicitly or explicitly, we all have ideas about how the law is supposed to function, whose interests it should represent, and what role it should play in society. This project explores the ways in which these questions are addressed in the works of the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus…

Non-urban settlement organization and Roman expansion in the Roman Republic (4th-1st centuries BC)

The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the…

This book explores how physicists, astronomers, chemists, and historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed ‘epistemic virtues’ such as accuracy, objectivity, and intellectual courage. In doing so, it takes the first step in providing an integrated history of the sciences…

The master’s specialisation Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and Science Communication & Society at Leiden University is a two-year programme which combines research training in chemistry with one in techniques of communication.

This project looks at material culture to better understand the character and organization of Roman colonial society in the Republican period, with a focus on the colony of Aesernia (founded 263 BC) in Samnium (modern-day Molise, Italy). What impact did the foundation of the colony have on precolonial…

Migration and Mobility in the Early Roman Empire by Luuk de Ligt and Laurens E. Tacoma (Eds.)

New perspectives from archaeology and ancient history

The Greek and Roman History Team concentrates on the study of the economies, societies and cultures of the large empires of the Graeco-Roman world, starting with the empires of Alexander the Great and his successors.

It is well-known that humans have significantly transformed ecosystems since their adoption of agriculture. However, in a deeper past, prehistoric hunter-gatherers may already have altered and modified their niche in ways that had major impacts on ecosystems.

In the research theme ‘Animal Sciences and Health’, we work with various animal species to gain insights into fundamental biological processes in both animals and humans.

The conquest by Rome brought profound changes to large parts of Europe. Unprecedented infrastructural works were created, towns sprang up, a ribbon of fortresses was laid out along the frontiers.

Correctly interpreting the patterns of fire evidence in the archaeological record will illuminate the origin of human fire use.

This NWO-funded research programme focuses on the assumptions and methodology of the writing of history of science. History of science is in many respects a flourishing discipline: it currently yields an impressive volume of studies. Systematic reflection about the ways in which history of science may…