Roger Rees

Biography

Dr. Rees is a Reader in Latin in School of Classics, University of St. Andrews.

Research Interest

Roman praise,Literature and history of late antiquity. The bulk of my past and current research has attempted to understand how and why praise functioned in Roman society, from the Republic through to late Antiquity. Who gave praise, to whom, in what context, why, and how did this change over time? Such questions have taken me to a wide range of sources, mainly literary, across many genres and centuries. Because context is crucial to appreciation of the dynamics of praise, I have spent a fair amount of time considering historical issues too. My abiding focus is a late antique collection of Latin panegyrical speeches, but I have enjoyed regular research ‘digressions’, such as on the emperor Diocletian, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus, and the British poet Ted Hughes.