Michael P. Fronda, Associate Professor
Associate Dean (Academic), Faculty of Arts
MA, PhD History (Ohio State University)
BA History, BA Classics (Cornell University)
Research areas: Roman Italy; history of the Roman republic and early empire; interstate relations
Professor Fronda's research centers on Pre-Roman and Roman Italy. His monograph Between Rome and Carthage: Southern Italy in the Second Punic War (Cambridge, 2010) examines the varied responses of Italian allied communities (socii) to Hannibal's invasion of the peninsula and his string of stunning victories in the early years of the war. The book highlights how each indivdual community's decision to defect or remain allied with Rome was strongly influenced by local political, economic and diplomatic conditions, including political factionalism and interstate rivalries. His current research project examines how Rome's hegemony in Italy during the middle and late Republic was reinforced by the display of images, gestures, behaviors, rituals and so forth, enacted before an Italian audience. Formerly Prof. Fronda was a senior associate of the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project. He has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Cyprus, Greece and Italy. He has held an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship (host institution: Technische Universität Dresden) and has been awarded funding through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Selected Publications:
Monograph
Fronda, Michael. P. 2010. Between Rome and Carthage: Southern Italy in the Second Punic War. Cambridge University Press. 404 pp.
Edited Volume
Jeremy Armstrong and Michael P. Fronda (eds), Romans at War: Soldiers, Citizens and Society in the Roman Republic. Routledge, 2020. 374 pp.
Articles and Book Chapters
(co-authored with Jeremy Armstrong) “Writing about Romans at War,” in Armstrong/Fronda, Romans at War: Soldiers, Citizens and Society in the Roman Republic (2020) 1-16.
“Titus Quinctius Flamininus’ Italian triumph,” in Armstrong/Fronda, Romans at War: Soldiers, Citizens and Society in the Roman Republic (2020) 170-190.
(co-authored with Chandra Giroux) “Spartan Strategies in the Early Peloponnesian War, 431-425 BCE,” Phoenix 73 (2019) 293-312.
Fronda, Michael P. and Gauthier, François, "Italy and Sicily in the Second Punic War: Multipolarity, Minor Powers, and Local Military Entrepreneurialism" in Toni Ñaco del Hoyo and Fernando López Sánchez (eds), War, Warlords, and Interstate Relations in the Ancient Mediterranean (Brill 2017) 308-325
"The Italians in the Second Punic War," in G. Farney and G. Bradley, The Peoples of Ancient Italy (De Gruyter 2017) 215-230.
"The Italiote League and Southern Italy," in H. Beck and P. Funke (eds), Federalism in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge 2015) 386-402
“Why Roman Republicanism: the Historical Context of its Emergence,” in Dean Hammer (ed), The Blackwell Companion to Ancient Democracies and Republics: A Comparative Approach (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2014) 44-64.
“Southern Italy: Sanctuary, Panēgyris and Italiote Identity,” in P. Funke (ed), Greek federal states and their sanctuaries. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2013) 123-138.
“Two notes of the Sententia Minuciorum (CIL I.2 584), lines 44-45,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigrafik 185 (2013) 262-266.
“Privata hospitia, beneficia publica? Consul(ar)s, local elite, and Roman rule in Italy” in F. Pina Polo and H. Beck (eds), Consuls and Res Publica: Holding High Office in the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) 232-256.
"Polybius 3.40, the foundation of Placentia, and the Roman calendar (218-217 BC)," Historia 60 (2011) 425-457.
"Hannibal: Tactics, Strategy and Geostrategy," in Dexter Hoyos (ed.), A Companion to the Punic Wars (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell 2011) 242-259.
Beck, Hans and Fronda, Michael P. "The Cartoceto Bronzes. Enigma and History," The Ancient World 40 (2009) 15-41.
"Hegemony and Rivalry: The Revolt of Capua Revisited," Phoenix 61 (2007) 83-108.
"Livy 9.20 and Early Roman Imperialism in Apulia, Historia 55 (2006) 397-417.