WAWIC 2026 Conference Program

8:30     Welcome/Registration       

Warfare in the Sixth-Century Roman Empire and Beyond

Chair: Christopher Lillington-Martin / Conor Whately

9:00     Battle Tactics and Medicare – Christopher Lillington-Martin

9:30     Late Antique Generalship: The Tension Between Manuals and Histories – David Parnell

10:00   Agathias and the Transformation of the Roman Military – Conor Whately

10:30   Coffee Break

11:00   Pre-Battle Speeches in Procopius’ Bella – Isabell Tscheinig

11:30   Ancient Iranian Ways of War: A Comparison of the Achaemenid, Arsacid, and Sassanian Empires – Ahmed Hashim

12:00   Lunch

West Asia

1:30     War, Religion, and Jerusalem – Zac Chase

2:00     Forts or Farms?: Frontier Settlements and Greek Pottery in the Achaemenid Negev - Ariel Levine

2:30     A New Chronology of Antiochos III’s Eastern Campaign – Graham Wrightson and Ben Scolnic

3:00     “As Our God Commands”: Comparing the Religious Motivations in the Conquest Ideology of the Assyrian Empire with those of Medieval Islam – John Riggs

3:30     Coffee Break

Greece I

4:00     The Walls of Troy: Magical Defences and Circumvellation in Ancient Sieges – Ben Scolnic

4:30     Xenophon’s Hiero as model for generals – Aaron Beek

5:00     Chares of Athens and the Decline of Accountability in Democratic Athens – Derek Green

5:30     Wargaming the Hegemonic Transition, 200-150 BCE – Paul Johstono

The Modern Historiography of Ancient Warfare

Chair: Fernando Echvérria Rey

9:00     Introduction and “150 years of Ancient Greek Warfare Studies” – Fernando Echeverría Rey

9:30     Toward a Military History of the Assyrian Empire – Sarah C. Melville

10:00   Hittite Warfare as Mirrored in Modern Research – Amir Gilan

10:30   Coffee Break

11:00   The emerging historiography of Achaemenid Persian warfare – John Hyland

11:30   The Historiography of Roman Warfare in the Republic: An Overview – François Gauthier

12:00   Decoding the Military of Ancient Egypt – Anthony Spalinger

12:30   Lunch

Rome 1

2:00     Ambracia, Polybius, and slamming the door(shield?) on a Livian ‘howler’ – Seth Kendall

2:30     “...Food too Revolting to Mention”: The Roman Army on its Stomach – Elijah Fleming

3:00     Arma et Myrta: Venus, Roman Warfare, and the Ovatio – Madeline White

3:30     Military Discipline in Frontinus’ Stratagems – James Chlup

Greece 2

9:00     A War Written in Stone: IEphesos V, no. 1450 and Ephesos’ Koinos Polemos – Jake Pawlush

9:30     To Provide for a Common Defense?: Regional Defense, Civil Strife, and the Rise of the Achaian League – Nicholas Lindberg

10:00   Ares and Xerxes in Aeschylus' Persians – Isabella Reinhardt

10:30   Coffee

11:00   The Phocian Betrayal at Thermopylae Revisited – Jeff Rop

11:30   Dynamic Duo – Epaminondas and Pelopidas: the partnership that shook Greece – Patrick Ziesmer

12:00   Honor to Horror: Postmortem Violence and the War Dead from Homer to Attic Vases – Keren Freidenreich

12:30   Lunch

Rome 2

2:00     Quinctilius Varus, Give Me Back My Stones: Recovering Auxiliary Soldiers Raised under Augustus from Tombstones – Jared Kreiner

2:30     Disgraceful Little Gifts: Former Prisoners of War in the Roman Army – Sarah Mark

3:00     Armies and Cities in Gaul during the Civil War of AD 68-69 – Hongyu Sun

3:30     Combat Motivation and Sensemaking in Late Roman Republic – Matt Guillot

Keynote

4:30     “The Legibility of Defeat: The End of Battle in Classical Antiquity” – Jenn Finn

7:00     Conference Dinner