Jake Nabel
Jake Nabel is a Pourdavoud Research Associate, Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, and a Scholar in Residence in the Department of Classics for the 2018-2019 academic year. After receiving his PhD in Classics from Cornell University in 2017, he held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Getty Research Institute during the 2017/18 scholar year on “The Classical World in Context: Persia.” His research centers on interstate relations between the Roman Mediterranean and the Parthian and Sasanian empires of the Iranian plateau. Jake is currently at work on a monograph on interdynastic kinship between the Julio-Claudians of Rome and the Arsacid royal family of Parthia. His other work includes published and forthcoming articles on the Hellenistic East, the reception of Alexander the Great in ancient Iranian traditions, and the representation of Persians in early imperial Latin poetry.
Education
PhD, Classics – Cornell University: “The Arsacids of Rome: Royal Hostages and Roman-Parthian Relations in the First Century CE,” 2016.
Post-Baccalaureate Program in Classical Studies – University of Pennsylvania, 2010.
B.A., Classics and Philosophy – Bard College, 2007.
Research
Research Interests
- Roman history and literature of the late Republic and early Principate
- Greco-Roman interaction with the empires of ancient Persia
- The Hellenistic East
- Ancient interstate relations
Archaeological Fieldwork
- Excavator, Hassloch Excavations Project. Summer 2013
- Excavator, Hassloch Excavations Project. Summer 2012
- Trench Supervisor, Project ArAGATS (American-Armenian Project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Trans-Caucasian Societies). Summer 2011
- Surveyor and Excavator, Mount Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project. Summer 2010
Articles
Peer-Reviewed Articles
“Arsacid Beverages in Lucan.” Resubmitted after revision and under consideration at Classical Quarterly.
“Remembering Intervention: Parthia in Rome’s Civil Wars.” Accepted pending satisfactory revisions at Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte.
“Lucan’s Parthians in Nero’s Rome.” Accepted and forthcoming in Classical Philology.
“Venus’ Boots and the Shadow of Caesar in Book 1 of Virgil’s Aeneid.” Classical Quarterly 65 (2), 2015, 689–92.
“Horace and the Tiridates Episode.” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 158 (3/4), 2015, 304–25.
Book Chapters
“The Arsacids of Rome and Parthia’s ‘Iranian Revival’ in the First Century CE.” In J. Wiesehöfer and S. Boysen (eds), Iranian Words: Proceedings of the Eighth Symposium of the Melammu Project Held in Kiel, Germany, November 11–15, 2014. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag. Forthcoming.
“Alexander between Rome and Persia: Politics, Ideology, and History.” In K. Moore (ed.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Alexander the Great, 197–232. Leiden: Brill. 2018.
“The Seleucids Imprisoned: Arsacid-Roman Hostage Submission and its Hellenistic Precedents.” In J. Schlude and B. Rubin (eds), Arsacids, Romans, and Local Elites: Cross-Cultural Interactions of the Parthian Empire, 25–50. Oxford: Oxbow Books. 2017.
Courses
At Cornell University:
- Elementary Latin II
- First Year Writing: Greek Myth (Virgil’s Aeneid)
- First Year Writing: Greek Myth (Homer’s Odyssey)
- History of Rome (Teaching Assistant)
- Greek Mythology (Teaching Assistant)
- Initiation to Greek Culture (Teaching Assistant)
Digital Projects
PI, Parthian Sources Online (www.parthiansources.com) – A digital collection of texts from the Parthian empire in Parthian, Greek, and Latin.