Robert Kaster, Princeton University
Professor
Princeton, New Jersey
kaster@Princeton.EDU
Office:
(609) 258-3963
Bio/Research
A native of New York City, I was educated at Dartmouth (B.A. 1969) and Harvard (M.A. 1971, Ph.D. 1975) and began my university teaching career at the University of Chicago, where I was the Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities before joining the Princeton faculty in ...
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Bio/Research
A native of New York City, I was educated at Dartmouth (B.A. 1969) and Harvard (M.A. 1971, Ph.D. 1975) and began my university teaching career at the University of Chicago, where I was the Avalon Foundation Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities before joining the Princeton faculty in 1997 as Professor of Classics and Kennedy Foundation Professor of Latin. I have taught and written mainly in the areas of Roman rhetoric, the history of ancient education, Roman ethics, and textual criticism.
My books have addressed topics ranging from the social structure of Roman education in the fourth and fifth centuries CE (Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity: Berkeley 1988) to the cultural psychology of the Roman elite in the late Republic and early Empire (Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome: Oxford 2005) and have included editions and annotated translations of Suetonius (De grammaticis et rhetoribus, Latin text with introduction, translation, and commentary: Oxford 1995), Cicero (Speech on Behalf of Publius Sestius, translation with introduction and commentary: Oxford 2006), Seneca (Seneca: Anger, Mercy, Revenge, with Martha Nussbaum: Chicago 2010), and the Saturnalia of Macrobius (Loeb Classical Library edition, 3 volumes: Harvard 2011). My critical edition of the Saturnalia appeared in the Oxford Classical Texts series in 2011, and The Appian Way: Ghost Road, Queen of Roads, a travelogue-cum-historical and cultural essay, was published in the University of Chicago Press's “Culture Trails” series in 2012. My most recent publications—all Oxford University Press 2016—include a critical edition of Suetonius's Caesars for the Oxford Classical Texts series, a companion monograph on the history and constitution of the text (Studies on the Text of Suetonius' "De uita Caesarum"), and a Festschrift in honor of David Konstan (Hope, Joy, and Affection in the Classical World) that I edited with Ruth R. Caston. With those projects completed I am preparing for publication the edition of Servius on Aeneid 9-12 that the late Charles Murgia left unfinished at his death.
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My books have addressed topics ranging from the social structure of Roman education in the fourth and fifth centuries CE (Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity: Berkeley 1988) to the cultural psychology of the Roman elite in the late Republic and early Empire (Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome: Oxford 2005) and have included editions and annotated translations of Suetonius (De grammaticis et rhetoribus, Latin text with introduction, translation, and commentary: Oxford 1995), Cicero (Speech on Behalf of Publius Sestius, translation with introduction and commentary: Oxford 2006), Seneca (Seneca: Anger, Mercy, Revenge, with Martha Nussbaum: Chicago 2010), and the Saturnalia of Macrobius (Loeb Classical Library edition, 3 volumes: Harvard 2011). My critical edition of the Saturnalia appeared in the Oxford Classical Texts series in 2011, and The Appian Way: Ghost Road, Queen of Roads, a travelogue-cum-historical and cultural essay, was published in the University of Chicago Press's “Culture Trails” series in 2012. My most recent publications—all Oxford University Press 2016—include a critical edition of Suetonius's Caesars for the Oxford Classical Texts series, a companion monograph on the history and constitution of the text (Studies on the Text of Suetonius' "De uita Caesarum"), and a Festschrift in honor of David Konstan (Hope, Joy, and Affection in the Classical World) that I edited with Ruth R. Caston. With those projects completed I am preparing for publication the edition of Servius on Aeneid 9-12 that the late Charles Murgia left unfinished at his death.
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