About
Alexander Free holds a professorship at the Department of Ancient History at the University of Freiburg. Between 2005 and 2010, he studied history and classical philology at the University of Tübingen before transferring to the University of Munich. Here, he completed his doctoral thesis in 2014 on ‘Geschichtsschreibung als Paideia. Lukians Schrift “Wie man Geschichte schreiben soll”’. Since 2014, he has been a research assistant in the Department of Ancient History at the LMU Munich, where he obtained his habilitation in 2022 with a thesis on ‘Polis und Metropolis im römischen Ägypten. Städtisches Selbstverständnis in Hermupolis Magna’.
Research
Alexander Free’s research focuses on the history of ancient historiography. He is interested in the social conditions for the writing and reception of historiography, as well as the methodology and theoretical prerequisites of historical analysis in antiquity. In addition, he deals with Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine Egypt, focusing on research into the ancient city on the one hand and the edition of papyri on the other.
Project funded by the Heisenberg Programme
Menschliches Miteinander in der Stadt und im Kloster. Studien zu rechtlichen und sozialen Interaktionen von Menschen zwischen Hellenismus und Spätantike
The project aims to investigate human legal and social interactions between Hellenism and Late Antiquity in three fields of research.
Firstly, taking Alexandria, Pergamum and Athens as examples, the construction of mental images of cities in the Hellenistic period will be studied. In addition to the literary and archaeological findings, epigraphic and papyrological sources such as the Astynomoi Law of Pergamum or the Alexandrian Dikaiomata are to be consulted to examine the city as a setting for its people and political institutions. The focus will lie on its inhabitants and their social and legal interactions on the streets and within the city quarters as a means of creating an image of the city.
Secondly, the urban life of Oxyrhynchos between the 4th and 7th centuries CE will be explored by means of the edition of late antique papyri. Washington University in St. Louis owns 450 papyri, 60 of which are to be presented to researchers in an edited volume. The papyri include, for example, an arrest warrant, a purchase contract for wine, a receipt for the annona militaris or a series of private letters that contain new information about Oxyrhynchos in late antiquity.
Thirdly, the case study of the monastery of Bet ‘Abe in Mesopotamia that was founded in 595/6 CE will serve to examine the representation of and approach to conflicts within monastic communities of late antiquity in a history of the monastery that is preserved in Ancient Syriac and written by the bishop Thomas of Marga. The text describes numerous conflicts that shed light on the social structures and the treatment of disputes within the monastic community. The study aims to highlight quarrels and conflicts as an everyday experience of the monks and to reflect on the methodological approach and the overlap between hagiography and historiography.
Publications
Selection of Publications
- A. Free, Geschichtsschreibung als Paideia. Lukians Schrift „Wie man Geschichte schreiben soll“ in der Bildungskultur des 2. Jhs. n. Chr. (Vestigia Band 69), München 2015.
- A. Free, Polis und Metropolis im römischen Ägypten. Städtisches Selbstverständnis von Hermupolis Magna (Klio-Beihefte Band 39), Berlin – Boston 2024.
- S. Bönisch-Meyer, A. Free, I. Mossong (Hrsgg.), Bilder urbaner Lebenswelten in der griechisch-römischen Antike (Philippika 146), Wiesbaden 2024.
- A. Free, Die Faktion des Geschichtsschreibers im Widerstreit mit der Theorie. Oder: Wird die antike Historiographie ihren eigenen Ansprüchen gerecht?, in: T. Blank, F. K. Maier (Hrsgg.), Die symphonischen Schwestern. Narrative Konstruktionen von ‚Wahrheiten‘ in der nachklassischen Geschichtsschreibung, Stuttgart 2018, S. 241-261.
- A. Free, List of Deliveries in Kind in the Eparchy of Arcadia, in: F. A. J. Hoogendijk, J. Stolk (Hrsgg.), Greek, Demotic and Coptic Papyri and Ostraca in the Leiden Papyrological Institute (P. L. Bat. 40), Leiden – Boston 2023, S. 195-209.
Teaching
Alexander Free teaches courses on Greek history from the Archaic period to Hellenism, with a particular focus on Hellenism. In Roman history, he focuses particularly on the Imperial period and Late Antiquity. He attaches particular importance to a reflective approach to the basic sciences and to addressing key topics for teacher training.