Staff profile

A native of Belfast, I gained my BA (1987) and PhD (1993) in Classics at Sidney Sussex college, Cambridge, and - after a brief stint there as Junior Research Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics (1992-94) - I joined the Department of Classics & Ancient History at the University of Manchester in 1994, becoming Professor of Latin in 2004. On 1 September 2018 I joined the Dept. of Classics & Ancient History at Durham as Professor of Classics.

PhD Supervision

I am very happy to supervise PhDs in the following areas: Ovid, Roman love elegy, Augustan poetry, Pliny the Younger, Cicero's Ad Familiares, and Roman epistolography

Schools Talks

As part of my AHRC Ancient Letter Collections project, I am happy to offer talks to schools on aspects of ancient letters and letter collections, includng Cicero and Pliny.

• Cicero, Ad Familiares
• Ovid
• Pliny the Younger
• PI and Co-director (with Andrew Morrison): AHRC Ancient Letter Collections project

• 2018: Chair, the Classical Association (UK), 2013-20:

Authored book

• Man of High Empire: the Life of Pliny the Younger
  
  Gibson, R. K. (2020). Man of High Empire: the Life of Pliny the Younger. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199948192.001.0001

Chapter in book

• Pliny and Plutarch's Practical Ethics: a newly rediscovered dialogue
  
  Gibson, R. K. (2018). Pliny and Plutarch’s Practical Ethics: a newly rediscovered dialogue. In A. Koenig & C. Whitton (Eds.), Roman Literature under Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian: Literary Interactions, AD 96–138 (pp. 402-421). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108354813.020
• Fifty shades of orange: Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries
  
  Gibson, R. K. (2016). Fifty shades of orange: Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries. In C. Kraus & C. Stray (Eds.), The Classical Commentary: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre (pp. 346-75). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780199688982.003.0018
• Not dark yet. Reading to the end of Pliny's nine-book collection.
  
  Gibson, R. K. (2015). Not dark yet. Reading to the end of Pliny’s nine-book collection. In I. Marchesi (Ed.), Pliny the Book-Maker: Betting on Posterity in the Epistles (pp. 185-222). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780198729464.003.0005

Edited book

• The Cambridge Critical Guide to Latin Literature
  
  Gibson, R., & Whitton, C. (Eds.). (2024). The Cambridge Critical Guide to Latin Literature. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108363303

Journal Article

• Pliny on the Nile: Panegyricus 29-32
  
  Gibson, R. (2019). Pliny on the Nile: Panegyricus 29-32. Maia: Rivista Di Letterature Classiche :., 2019(71.2), 447-466.
• Pro Marcello without Caesar: grief, exile and death in Cicero's Epistulae ad familiares 4
  
  Gibson, R. K. (2017). Pro Marcello without Caesar: grief, exile and death in Cicero’s Epistulae ad familiares 4. Hermathena : A Trinity College Dublin Review., 202-203.