Paul Cartledge

Early life

Cartledge was educated at St Paul's School and New College, Oxford, where, with his contemporaries Robin Lane Fox and Terence Irwin, he was a student of G. E. M. de Ste. Croix. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, later promoted to MA (Oxon) by seniority, in 1969. He remained at the University of Oxford to undertake postgraduate studies, completing a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) under the supervision of Professor Sir John Boardman. His thesis focused on Spartan archaeology.

Academic career

Cartledge lectured at the New University of Ulster in 1972–73, at Trinity College, Dublin, from 1973 to 1978, and at the University of Warwick in 1978–79. In October 1979, he moved to Cambridge University where he is a fellow of Clare College.

In 2008, Cartledge was elected to the newly established A. G. Leventis Professorship of Greek Culture at Cambridge University, a position from which he retired at the end of September 2014.

Cartledge holds a visiting Global Distinguished Professorship at New York University, funded by the Greek Parliament, and sits on the European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press.

Cartledge is also a holder of the Gold Cross of the Order of Honour of Greece and an Honorary Citizen of (modern) Sparta.

He is Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

Field of study

Cartledge's field of study is Athens and Sparta in the Classical Age; he has been described as a Laconophile.

He was chief historical consultant for the BBC TV series The Greeks and the Channel 4 series The Spartans, presented by Bettany Hughes.

Cartledge has appeared several times over his career on the BBC radio program In Our Time on episodes that discuss the ancient world.

Personal life

Cartledge is married to Judith Portrait, a solicitor who acts as trustee of part of the Sainsbury family shareholding in Sainsbury's in blind trust.

In August 2014, Cartledge was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

Publications

• Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (1987), The Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Aristophanes and His Theatre of the Absurd (1989), Duckworth.
• Nomos : Essays in Athenian Law, Politics and Society (1991), Cambridge University Press.
• The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece (1997), Cambridge University Press.
• The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization (TV Books, L.L.C., 2000; BBC Worldwide, 2001; 2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2002)
• Spartan Reflections, a collection of essays new and revised (Duckworth, 2001),
• Sparta and Lakonia (2nd edn., Routledge and Kegan Paul, 2002).
• Hellenistic and Roman Sparta (rev. edn., Routledge, 2002), (with A. Spawforth).
• The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others (2nd edn, Oxford University Press, 2002), the product of research into Greek self-definition.
• Kosmos: Essays in Order, Conflict and Community in Classical Athens (coauthor Paul Millett; (2002), Cambridge University Press.
• The Spartans: An Epic History (2nd edition, Pan Books, 2003). Published in the U.S. by The Overlook Press/Peter Mayer Publishers as The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse (2003) .
• Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past (Macmillan, 2004).
• Helots and Their Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures (Center for Hellenic Studies, 2004).
• Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World (The Overlook Press, 2006).
• Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
• Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities, (Oxford University Press, 2009).
• Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece (Picador, 2020).

References

References

1. "‘Sparta and the Commemoration of War’ and ‘The Killing Ground’ review {{!}} History Today".
2. "CARTLEDGE, Prof. Paul Anthony", ''Who's Who 2010'', A & C Black, 2010; [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U42541 online edition]
3. "University of Cambridge News 7 October 2008".
4. [http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2007-08/weekly/6115/22.html Cambridge University Reporter 11 June 2008]
5. Marranca, Richard. (2025-07-31). "The Odyssey Still Matters! Dr. Paul Cartledge on Homer’s Epic".
6. [http://www.stpaulsschool.org.uk/academic/classics St Paul's School: Classics Department]
7. [http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/87854/frontmatter/9780521887854_frontmatter.pdf ''Sophocles and the Greek Tragic Tradition''], Cambridge University Press 2009 {{ISBN. 978-0-521-88785-4 foreword by Paul Cartledge
8. [http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/directory/paul-cartledge Cambridge University Classics Faculty website]
9. [[A. G. Leventis Professorship of Greek Culture]] Cambridge Classics Faculty News January 2014
10. [http://press.princeton.edu/about_pup/european_advisory_board.html Princeton University Press Accessed 17 April 2014] {{webarchive. link. (8 June 2011)
11. "Honorary Graduands and Medallists - Summer 2017". U. of Warwick.
12. Cartledge, Paul. (2023-06-11). "Elgin, Byron, and those marbles revisited".
13. (2021-03-31). "British Philhellene Paul Cartledge Honored by the Greek State".
14. "Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria - Ancient Sparta: Myths versus Reality".
15. "BBC Radio 4 - in Our Time - Episode guide".
16. [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2004/sep/05/theobserver.observerbusiness The Observer 5 September 2004] accessed 9 October 2014
17. (7 August 2014). "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories | Politics". theguardian.com.