Althistorisches Seminar

PD Dr. Alexandra Eckert


Curriculum vitae

  • Interview with the Deutschlandfunk (a German national radio broadcast station) discussing the topic of oligarchy and the threats it poses to democracies: Deutschlandfunk | ARD Audiothek
  • September – October 2025: Research visit to the USA, including a presentation at the conference “Oratory and Rhetoric in the Generation before Cicero” at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
  • Since February 2025: Visiting scholar in the Department of Ancient History (Professor Hans-Ulrich Wiemer), University of Erlangen-Nuremberg
  • Winter term 2024/2025: Lecture “History of the Roman Republic” and seminar “The Civil Wars of the late Roman Republic” at the University of Göttingen
  • November 2024: Presentation of the Mommsen Lecture at the joint lecture series of the Mommsen Society and the Association of Ancient Historians; lecture title: “Contested Claims of Promoting the Public Good. The Oligarchic Coups of 411 and 404/3 BCE”
  • since May 2024: board member of the Mommsen Society
  • since January 2024: Privatdozentin at the University of Göttingen venia legendi for Ancient history (habilitation) awarded by the Faculty of Humanities, University of Göttingen
  • April 2023: Submission of the Habilitation thesis “Democracy’s shadow of Oligarchy” at the University of Göttingen and Research grant awarded by the Faculty of Humanities, University of Göttingen
  • since October 2020: Research project “Der oligarchische Schatten der Demokratie. Zum Spannungsfeld zwischen Demokratie und Oligarchie im Athen des 5. Jh.s v. Chr.“ (Democracy’s shadow of oligarchy. On the tension between Oligarchy and Democracy in fifth century BC Athens), University of Göttingen
  • October 2019 – September 2020: Junior Fellow at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg in Greifswald
  • October 2018 – March 2019: Visiting Research Fellow, University College Dublin
  • February 2018 – April 2018: Visiting Research Fellow, King’s College London
  • April 2013 – June 2020: Lecturer, Department of Ancient History, University of Oldenburg
  • November 2012: PhD in Ancient History, University of Halle-Wittenberg, thesis: “Lucius Cornelius Sulla in der antiken Erinnerung” (Remembering Lucius Cornelius Sulla in Antiquity)


Peer review and Memberships


Areas of Research

  • Democracy and Oligarchy in classical Athens
  • Oligarchic threats to democracies
  • Reception of Athenian democracy in school books
  • The Roman civil war general and dictator Lucius Cornelius Sulla (138–78 BC)
  • Sulla’s afterlife until the 3rd century AD
  • Roman rhetoric


Publications, Teaching, Lectures