Cynthia Ellen Murray Damon (born 1957) is a Professor of

Classical Studies Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and their original languages ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and has written extensively on

Latin literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literatur ...

and

Roman historiography During the Second Punic War with Carthage, Rome's earliest known annalists Quintus Fabius Pictor and Lucius Cincius Alimentus recorded history in Greek, and relied on Greek historians such as Timaeus. Roman histories were not written in Classi ...

, having published translations and commentaries on authors such as

Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war. He ...

and

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

Career

Cynthia Damon received her B.A. in

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1979, M.A. in

Classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

from

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private university, private Catholic Jesuits, Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic Religious order (Catholic), religious order, t ...

in 1984 and Ph.D. from

in 1990, as well as an honorary A.M. from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

in 2004. Damon taught at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

as Assistant Professor from 1990 to 1995, at

as Assistant Professor and Professor 1995-2007, and moved to the

as Professor of Classical Studies in 2007. In 2015 Damon was awarded the College of Liberal and Professional Studies Distinguished Teaching Award for Standing Faculty. Damon was the editor of '' Transactions of the American Philological Association'' from 2001 to 2005 and member of the board of directors of the

American Philological Association The Society for Classical Studies (SCS), formerly known as the American Philological Association (APA), is a non-profit North American scholarly organization devoted to all aspects of Greek and Roman civilization founded in 1869. It is the pree ...

from 2007 to 2010. Damon is part of ''

Bryn Mawr Classical Review ''Bryn Mawr Classical Review'' (''BMCR''), founded in 1990, is an open access journal that as of 2008 published reviews of scholarly work in the field of classical studies including classical archaeology. The journal describes itself as the sec ...

'''s editorial board. In 1997 Damon published ''The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage'' based on her doctoral thesis. Since 1997 Damon has focused on the translation of and commentaries on key classical texts including works by

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

Nepos Nepos is a Latin word originally meaning "grandson" or "descendant", that evolved with time to signify " nephew". The word gives rise to the term nepotism. It may also refer to: * Cornelius Nepos, a Roman biographer * Julius Nepos, sometimes consi ...

, and

. Damon was awarded a

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a monographic series of books originally published by Heinemann and since 1934 by Harvard University Press. It has bilingual editions of ancient Greek and Latin literature, ...

Foundation Fellowship in 2013/14 to work on a new translation of

Caesar's Civil War Caesar's civil war (49–45 BC) was a civil war during the late Roman Republic between two factions led by Julius Caesar and Pompey. The main cause of the war was political tensions relating to Caesar's place in the Republic on his expected ret ...

, which was published in 2016 replacing the 1914 version by A. G. Peskett. She is currently focusing on Pliny's ''Natural History'' and its reception and delivered a keynote address ''Plinian layers: On editing the reception of Pliny’s planetary theory'' in 2016 at the conference ''The Arts of Editing: Past, Present and Future'' (17–19 August 2016) at

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

. Damon has been praised for her meticulous approach to texts. For example, Antonio Moreno Hernández commented on ''Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum civile'':

This excellent edition makes serious contributions to the reconstruction of the text, and its careful and deep reading of the text of BC and the close study of its textural tradition is accompanied by an insightful commentary on troublesome passages that brings to light the enormous complexity of a text that has been transmitted in such a deficient way, offering suggestive new proposals that will encourage reflection on the reading and interpretation of the work of Caesar.

In 2016/17 Damon was awarded the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Price Lab for Digital Humanities to work on the ''Bellum Alexandrinum'' project. This project is a pilot to test the new ''Digital Latin Library'' editing platform and has included input from high school to graduate students to serve as a precedent for collaborative editions of classical texts and an example of how one might include text editing in classicists' training.

Selected works

* ''Caesar, Civil War'' (edition and translation, Loeb Classical Library, 2016) * ''C. Iuli Caesaris Commentariorum libri III de bello civili'' (Oxford Classical Texts, 2015). * ''Studies on the Text of Caesar's Bellum Civile'' (Oxford, 2015) * ''Tacitus, Annals'' (Penguin Classics, 2012) *with Brian Breed and Andreola Rossi ''Citizens of Discord: Rome and its Civil Wars'' (Oxford University Press, 2010) * with William Batstone ''Caesar's Civil War'' (Oxford Approaches to Classical Literature, 2006) * ''Tacitus, Histories, Book I'' (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, 2003) *''The Mask of the Parasite: A Pathology of Roman Patronage'' (University of Michigan Press, 1997)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Damon, Cynthia 1957 births Living people American classical scholars Stanford University alumni Women scholars and academics Place of birth missing (living people) Women classical scholars University of Pennsylvania faculty