Ben Davis joined the Department of Classics at Kenyon as a visiting assistant professor in 2026, where he teaches courses in Latin and Greek literature, Roman history and the environment in Greek and Roman thought. His research primarily focuses on Latin and Greek pastoral literature and its reception. He has delivered papers at the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) and the Classical Association for the Middle West and South (CAMWS), and he is working on a book project studying the relationship between pastoral representation and dynamics of spatial enclosure and commodification in Imperial Rome.
Areas of Expertise
Latin literature, Greek and Roman pastoral, ecocriticism and classics
Education
— Doctor of Philosophy from the University of California, Los Angeles
— Master of Arts from the University of Oregon
— Bachelor of Arts from the University of Utah
Courses Recently Taught
This course surveys the history of the ancient Romans from their early years as a negligible people in central Italy to their emergence as the supreme power in the Mediterranean and, finally, to the eve of their displacement as rulers of the greatest empire in antiquity. The course combines a chronological account of the Romans' remarkable political history with an examination of Roman society, including subjects such as gender, demography and slavery. We read from a variety of ancient sources, including the historians Polybius, Livy and Tacitus and the poets Horace and Vergil. We also mine the evidence offered by coins, inscriptions, papyri and even graffiti, which provide invaluable insight into the realia of daily life. No prerequisite. Offered every other year.
It is a great pleasure to read Homer in Greek, and this course seeks to help students do so with accuracy and insight. Students acquire a working knowledge of Homer's vocabulary and syntax, and explore some of the key literary and historical questions that have occupied his readers. Offered every spring.
Students improve their skills in reading Greek and discuss scholarship on the author or authors being read that semester. Each semester the readings change, so that GREK 301 and 302 can be taken, to the student's advantage, several times. Students are encouraged to inform the instructor in advance if there is a particular genre, author or theme they would especially like to study. The list of authors taught in this course includes the lyric poets; the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes; and great prose stylists such as Plato and Thucydides, to name just a few. Offered every spring.
The goal of this course is to cultivate students' skills as readers of continuous Latin prose. To this end, students expand their vocabulary as well as review and refine their understanding of the morphology and syntax of classical Latin. Upon completing this course, students read Latin prose with greater precision, nuance and speed. Authors read with some regularity in this course include Caesar, Cicero and Sallust; however, the particular text or texts vary from year to year and may be complemented with a selection of poems, for example those of Catullus. Offered every fall.
