Christopher Simon
Christopher graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in Classics and a Certificate in Linguistics. After several years as a journeyman international rower, he entered the Department of Classics at Yale.
Although he has been known to laugh at Lucian’s sass, he has made a home in Latin literature and is hard at work studying the origines of Rome. His dissertation examines the relationship between ancient etymology and Roman history in narrations of events like Romulus’s augurium and in explanations of words, names, and phrases such as the Remores aves. Beyond a fascination with ideas about language and its uses, he is generally interested in the intellectual and cultural history of Rome and is specifically curious to explore the different forms of knowledge as represented both by and texts like Gellius’s Attic Nights, Servius (auctor), and Festus.
Dissertation
- "Rome in its Words: Ancient Etymology and the History of Rome"
(supervised by John J. Fisher and Christina S. Kraus)
Select Presentations
- "Image and etymology in Republican coinage"
‘Art in the Round’: New approaches to Ancient Coin Iconography (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Institut für Klassische Archäologie 15–16 November 2012) - "De originibus verborum: ancient theories and modern science"
Lost in Time Colloquium (Yale University, 16 September 2011) - "Archaeologia and etymologica before and after Varro"
Historiography and Antiquarianism Conference (University of Sydney, 12-14 August 2011) - "Original Etymologies and Roman Historiography"
The Classical Association Annual Conference (Durham University, 15-18 April 2011)
Recent Teaching
- Latin 131a: Latin Prose – An Introduction (Fall 2012)
- Latin S110: Beginning Latin – Elements of Grammar (Summer 2012)
- Latin 120b: Review of Grammar and Selected Readings (Spring 2011
- ClCiv 206a/Hist 217a: Introduction to Roman History: The Republic (Fall 2010)
