Paul Ionescu

 I am a PhD student interested in a variety of areas of Classical Antiquity. I have previously treated Marcus Aurelius' wars of expansion in Central and Eastern Europe during my MA and I have a broad interest in frontiers in Antiquity, most notably the Danube and North African Frontiers in the Roman Empire and the limits of the Hellenistic Far East in the Greco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek Kingdoms. As someone of Romanian descent, I also am interested in Dacia in the longue durée, from the early Iron Age into the Post-Roman and Early Medieval eras, and the ways that this history is and has been misappropriated for ethno-nationalist uses.  

I have also been a competitive powerlifter since 2016 and this manifests itself in my interest in applying modern day sports science methodologies to historical analysis, most notably my as of yet unpublished work on the training of Roman legionaries and a more general interest in Ancient Sport and Gymnasion and Palaestra culture. 

Research interests: the High Roman Empire, Roman and Iron-Age Dacia, Eastern Europe in Antiquity, the Hellenistic Far East, and strength and conditioning within both Ancient lifestyles and leisure activities