William Broadhead

Professor Will Broadhead is a historian of the ancient Mediterranean world. He specializes in the history of ancient Italy from the 4th to the 1st centuries BC, with a particular interest in relations between the Romans and the various Italian peoples subject to them. He has published a series of articles and book chapters on the impact of migration in second-century Italy, on Roman colonization, and on ethnic contingents in the army of the Roman republic. He is currently working on a book examining the impact of high mobility on Rome’s hegemony in Italy and on Roman efforts to exploit the manpower resources of their Italian subjects. Prof. Broadhead was also a principal contributor to the Imagines Italicae project, based at the Institute of Classical Studies in London, whose three-volume publication of the Oscan, Umbrian, and other Italic inscriptions from Italy was published in 2011.

Prof. Broadhead received his PhD in Ancient History in 2002 from University College London. Before moving to MIT in 2004, he taught in the UK at University College London, Birkbeck College London, and the Universities of Nottingham and Bristol. He has also taught Roman topography at the British School in Rome and has worked on archaeological excavations at the Yasmina Necropolis in Tunisia and at the Civita di Tricarico in Italy.

His teaching at MIT includes introductions to ancient Greek and Roman history, an introduction to ancient and medieval empires, and courses on the fall of the Roman Republic, the city of Athens, the city of Rome, and ancient and modern views of Roman emperors. He is the director of MIT’s IAP in Ancient and Medieval Italy and IAP in Ancient Greece programs.

For his contributions to the undergraduate educational experience at MIT, Prof. Broadhead has been recognized with the James A. and Ruth Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching (2011) and the Arthur C. Smith Award for Meaningful Contributions and Devotion to Student Life and Learning (2018). In 2012, he was named a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT’s highest honor for exemplary and sustained contributions to the teaching and education of undergraduates.