Tim Parkin

Biography

Professor Tim Parkin joined the Classics and Archaeology programme at the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Before this he had spent over eleven years as Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester (UK). He is a New Zealander by birth who was awarded a D.Phil. at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and who, since 1989, has worked in universities in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, as well as spending 14 months in Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt research fellow.

Tim’s main research is in ancient history, particularly Roman social, cultural, legal, and demographic history. Among his publications are Demography and Roman Society (1992), Old Age in the Roman World (2003), Roman Social History (2007, with Arthur Pomeroy), The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (2014, with Judith Evans Grubbs and Roslynne Bell), and Domestic Violence and Vulnerability in the Roman World (2024, with Eleanor Cowan). He is currently working on a book on ancient sexual health, in particular sexually transmitted diseases, and is co-editing a six-volume world history of old age. Tim is deputy head of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, where he teaches Roman history and classical languages, as well as being very involved in bringing Classics to the wider community, including as the Honorary President of the Classical Association of Victoria and on the editorial board of the journal Antichthon.