Byron Waldron
Post-doctoral researcher
SHORT PROFILE
Byron Waldron is an Australian classicist and historian who has produced studies on Middle Republican and Late Antique Roman history and historiography, Roman Imperial ideology, panegyric & invective, and Sasanian Persia. He is the author of the well reviewed Dynastic Politics in the Age of Diocletian, AD 284-311 (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), and has published article-length studies for a variety of journals and academic presses, including the Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, the Journal of Late Antiquity, and Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. He is a member of the Serbo-Australian team that excavated a newly discovered Roman palace in Glac, Serbia, and a recipient of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies Early Career Award.
Byron has taught at the University of Sydney, Macquarie University and the University of New South Wales, and his contributions to teaching have been recognised through formal commendations and the Higher Education Academy (UK). He has also developed a profile in the world of popular history, writing popular web articles for Military History Now and documentaries for HistoryMarche and Eastern Roman History, including series on Aurelian and the Third Samnite War with over a million views.
PUBLICATIONS
Monograph
2022: Dynastic Politics in the Age of Diocletian, AD 284-311, Edinburgh University Press.
Review: Marcos, M. (2023) Bryn Mawr Classical Review, https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2023/2023.04.39/
“By discussing, analyzing, and explaining the ancient sources on which his study is based, Waldron makes his book attractive to […] scholars and specialists, who will discover a fruitful focus on the Tetrarchs as a dynasty during the age of Diocletian.”
Journal Articles (Peer-Reviewed)
2028 (accepted and forthcoming): "Constantius I, the Celebration of Tetrarchic Campaigns, and the Authenticity of Britannicus maximus II", Historia 2028.1.
2026 (accepted and forthcoming; with C. S. Chrysanthou & K. Tzortzopoulou): "Concordia and Social Cognition in Latin Literature”, Mnemosyne.
2026 (accepted and forthcoming): "The Dyarchy, the Tetrarchy, and Group Minds", Studies in Late Antiquity.
2026: "Aurelian and Cniva", Deimos – Zeitschrift für Antike Militärgeschichte 2, pp. 25-35.
2025: "Shapur I, Odaenathus and Kushanshahr: A Eurasian Perspective on Geopolitics in the Mid-Third Century", Antiquité Tardive 33, pp. 241-52.
2024: Fabius Maximus Rullianus and the Capture of Gavius Pontius: Livy's Book 11 and the Last Years of the Third Samnite War, BICS 20, 1-14.
2022 [publ. 2026] (accepted and forthcoming): Filia or Priuigna? On the Paternity of Theodora, Wife of Constantius I, Hermathena 213.
2021: Diocles the Timid: Invective History and Divine Justice in Lactantius’s De Mortibus Persecutorum 17-19, Journal of Late Antiquity 14.1, pp. 29-49.
2020: Decies et Maximiano VII: A Proposed Revision to Consular Dating during the Rise of Constantine, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 214, pp. 320-25.
2017: Seleucid Strategies for the Establishment and Maintenance of their Kingdom in the 3rd Century BC, Ancient History: Resources for Teachers 46, pp. 78-101.
2014: Lucullus, the East and the Third Mithridatic War, Classicum 40.2, pp. 9-22.
2013: Athens, Chios and the Delian League, Classicum 39.1, pp. 13-18.
Book Chapters (Peer-Reviewed)
2026 (forthcoming): Slaying His Boar: The Assassination of Aper and the Investiture of Diocletian, in R. Konijnendijk & J. W. P. Wijnendaele (eds.), Assassination in Antiquity, Franz Steiner Verlag.
2024: Neglected Iranian and Syriac Evidence on the Persian Campaigns of Gordian III and Galerius, in J. Kreiner & G. Wrightson (eds.), Ancient Warfare, Vol. II: Introducing Current Research, Cambridge Scholars Press, pp. 227-53.
2023: Virtutibus Fratres: The Brotherhood of Diocletian and Maximian, in F. Carlà-Uhink and C. Rollinger (eds.), The Tetrarchy as Ideology: Reconfigurations and Representations of an Imperial Power, Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 47-65.
Other Works
2025 (forthcoming): Caesar; nobilissima femina; Quinquennalia/Decennalia/Vicennalia, in I. T. Cinemre & C. Pilevneli (eds.), Institutions and Concepts in Late Antiquity (224-651), Turkish Historical Society.
2015: Collegiality, Dynasty and Abdication: Political Change and the Tetrarchy, Papers of the British School at Rome 83, pp. 332-33.
Reviews
2024: Review of Tuna Şare Ağtürk, The Painted Tetrarchic Reliefs of Nicomedia: Uncovering the Colourful Life of Diocletian's Forgotten Capital (Turnhout: Brepols, 2021). ISBN 9782503594781, Bryn Mawr Classical Review.
2022: The Panegyric of Constantine in 310 CE: Review of Catherine Ware, A Literary Commentary on Panegyrici Latini VI(7). An Oration Delivered before the Emperor Constantine in Trier, ca. AD 310 (Cambridge: Cambridge, 2021). ISBN: 9781107123694., Classical Review 72.1, pp. 180-82.
2020: Zenobia and Palmyra: Review of Nathanael J. Andrade, Zenobia: Shooting Star of Palmyra (Oxford: Oxford, 2018). ISBN: 9780190638818., Classical Review 70.1, pp. 170-72.
2014: Review of Andrea Salimbeti & Raffaele D’Amato, The Carthaginians 6th-2nd Century BC, Elite 201 (Oxford: Osprey, 2014). ISBN: 9781782007760., Melbourne Historical Journal 42.2, pp. 85-87.
Podcasts and Web Articles
2024: Did the Romans Hide Their Defeats?: Uncovering the Military Failures of the Empire's 'Third Century Crisis', Military History Now.
2024: Valerius Laevinus - Meet the Little-Known Roman Commander Who Helped the Republic Defeat Hannibal, Military History Now.
2024: Fabius Maximus Rullianus: Meet Rome’s First Military Superstar, Military History Now.
2024: Shapur I: Meet the Third Century Persian King Who Crushed Three Roman Emperors, Military History Now.
2024: Khushnawar: Meet the Fifth Century Hun Warlord Who Surpassed Even Attila, Military History Now.
2020: Diocletian and the Sword of Damocles: The Tetrarchic Experiment as a Dynasty of Soldiers, The University of Queensland Classics and Ancient History Podcast.
Documentaries
2024: The Tetrarchy: Assessing Every Emperor. Guest on Eastern Roman History.
2024: The Battle of Abritus, AD 251. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ_5DhBTOpk.
2024: Attila of the East. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_LNJ9DNJ9o.
2024: Constantine’s Triumph. When Christianity Became Dominant. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igq78M2X7d0.
2023: The Third Samnite War. All Parts. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG7Fdy0e8lo.
2023: Birth of the Sasanian Empire. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAKrPSlmjm0.
2023: The Third Samnite War. Part 3. The Battle of Aquilonia, 293 BC. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PauHzCCe2J0.
2023: How Did Diocletian Become Emperor? Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2CmgsPHr3g.
2022: The Third Samnite War. Part 2. The Battle of Sentinum, 295 BC. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaOXTHkDaJA.
2022: The Third Samnite War. Part 1. The Battle of Tifernum, 297 BC. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDXWH51IJBY.
2022: Diocletian and the Politics of the Tetrarchy. Guest on Eastern Roman History, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjtcNl2TnkE.
2021: How Aurelian Restored the Roman Empire. All Parts. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3-9TQU0VrM.
2021: Crisis of the Third Century: Assessing Every Emperor. Guest on Eastern Roman History, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJdSGpPvjy0.
2021: How Aurelian Restored the Roman Empire. Part 1. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIqMBAbUXsk.
2021: How Aurelian Restored the Roman Empire. Part 2. The Battle of Immae, AD 272. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nmppl9kKd0.
2021: How Aurelian Restored the Roman Empire. Part 3. The Battle of Emesa, AD 272. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ-MGGG-MTI.
2021: Merobaudes. Master of the Roman Empire. Researcher for Eastern Roman History, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tKVy5TGGGo.
2020: The Battle of Satala, AD 298. Writer for HistoryMarche, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2571JUYAlI.
ERC PROJECT
Group Minds in Latin Political Narratives
This project considers the Latin narration of group minds in the context of political transformations, especially succession events and civil war. Latin authors employed group cognition in diverse ways depending on genre and social, cultural and political context. In the realm of historiography, Aurelius Victor used class-based and geographical cognition to explain the usurpation of imperial power by military and provincial groupings in the third and fourth centuries CE. For Victor, group cognition was an explanatory tool to understand the recent course of Roman history, an age of civil wars and usurpations. He typified group behaviour through patterning, seeking to assist his elite audience to understand historical developments and to predict future power dynamics.
The Panegyrici Latini of the third and fourth centuries use group cognition to demonstrate concordia between co-emperors and consensus among imperial subjects. This approach to consensus through group cognition has its origins in Republican literature, with Livy, for instance, using group cognition to demonstrate support for Patrician heroes in the face of opposition from rival senators. Panegyrists contrast consensus and concordia narratives with counter-narratives relating to imperial rivals and usurpers. These enemies either do not enjoy group consensus backing their rule, or they are rather supported by a non-Roman consensus. This stripping of group consensus and denial of group Romanitas in the representation of support for usurpers and ‘bad’ emperors is a practice also found in the genres of history and invective (Lactantius, the Historia Augusta, etc), as well as in other panegyrical works, such as Pliny’s Panegyricus.
However, Latin panegyrists also engage with forms of group representation found in fictional works like novels. Panegyrists use senatorial, urban, military and provincial group minds to produce dramatic set-pieces that immerse the audience. These narratives situate the success of emperors and the lack of success of their domestic enemies within allusive storyworlds that evoke the literary repertoire of Virgil, Cicero and Lucan among others.
In short, civil war and civil disorder offered rich opportunities for Latin authors to represent and narrate intermentality. Depending on genre and other contextual factors, group minds could be tools for interpretation, mechanisms of immersion, avenues of reflection and criticism, and representations of consensus and dissensus, Romanitas and barbarity.
Last Updated on May 15, 2026