Scholarship and Biography
Caitlin Gillespie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Classical and Early Mediterranean Studies. Previously, she taught at Columbia University in New York and Temple University in Philadelphia. She received her BA in Classics from Harvard University (2005), her Master of Studies in Greek and Latin Languages and Literatures from the University of Oxford (2006), and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania (2012) with a dissertation on female exemplarity in Tacitus’ Annals.
Professor Gillespie’s research focuses on women of the Roman Empire, with a particular interest in the relationship between gender, power, and politics among women of the ruling family. She has published articles on Boudica, Agrippina the Younger, Epicharis, Livia, Messalina, Agrippina the Elder, and class and gender in the opposition to Nero, among others. Her first book, Boudica: Warrior Woman of Roman Britain (Oxford, 2018) explored representations of Boudica in Roman history and the material culture of first century Britain. She has contributed to several collaborative projects, including articles on women, gender, and motherhood in Tacitus for the Tacitus Encyclopedia, and chapters in edited volumes on women in Cassius Dio, and gender in Sallust. In 2026, she published Livia: Mother of Rome (Yale) and Women and Resistance in the Annals of Tacitus (Cornell). She is currently writing a book on women in the year of four emperors.