Professional Title
Department Head, Associate Professor of History, History Program Coordinator
Jeffrey Rop completed his Ph.D. in History and Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies from Pennsylvania State University in 2013. His research focuses on the military and political history of Greece and Achaemenid Persia in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, while his courses at UMD cover the history of the ancient Mediterranean, the ancient Near East, and world history to 1500.
Publications:
- Greek Military Service in the Ancient Near East, 401-330 BCE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
- "The Persian Way of War: Infantry Tactics in the Achaemenid Empire." In Brill's Companion to War in the Ancient Iranian Empires, edited by John Hyland and Khodadad Rezakhani. Leiden: Brill, 2024 (forthcoming).
- "Elisha's Secret Demons: Philanderer, Fraud, Traitor, Murderer." In The Formation of Biblical Texts: Chronicling the Legacy of Gary N. Knoppers, edited by Deirdre N. Fulton, Kenneth A. Ristau, Jonathan S. Greer, and Margaret E. Cohen, 57-74. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024.
- "The Four Hundred and the Ten Thousand: the Politics of Greek Bodyguard Service in the Achaemenid Empire." In Brill's Companion to Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Mark Hebblewhite and Conor Whately, 102-127. Leiden: Brill, 2022.
- "Greeks in Foreign Service: The Case of the Achaemenid Empire." In A Companion to Greek Warfare, edited by Waldemar Heckel, F.S. Naiden, E. Edward Garvin, and John Vanderspoel, 160-172. Wiley Blackwell, 2021.
- "Refighting Cunaxa: Xenophon's Education of Cyrus as a Manual on Military Leadership." In Greek and Roman Military Manuals: Genre and History, edited by James T. Chlup and Conor Whately, 153-171. London: Routledge, 2020.
- "The Phocian Betrayal at Thermopylae." Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 68 (2019), 413-435.
- "The Outbreak of the Rebellion of Cyrus the Younger." Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 59 (2019), 57-85.
- "The Assassination of Tissaphernes: Royal Responses to Military Defeat in the Achaemenid Empire." In Brill's Companion to Military Defeat in Ancient Mediterranean Society, edited by Jessica H. Clark and Brian Turner, 51-73. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
- "The Historical Context of the Reply to the Satraps Inscription (IG IV 556)." Journal of Ancient History 5 (2017), 304-322.
- “Reconsidering the Origin of the Scythed Chariot.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 62 (2013), 167-181.
Courses Offered:
- HIST 1200: World History to 1500 CE
- HIST 3035: Ancient Warfare
- HIST 3055: The Bible & the Ancient Near East
- HIST 3133: Ancient Greece
- HIST 3141: Ancient Rome