Ian Worthington has been Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie since 2017.

Before then, he held an endowed chair as Curators' Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Missouri, USA. He hails from northern England, taking his B.A. at Hull and M.A. at Durham, before moving to Monash University to do his Ph.D. 

Worthington specialises in Greek history and oratory. To date, he has written 10 sole-authored books (some translated into several languages), 2 co-authored books, edited 11 books, translated 2 volumes of the Greek orators (in the University of Texas Oratory of Classical Greece series), and written over 100 articles and essays on Greek history, oratory, and epigraphy.

Authored books:

Macedonia under the Argead Kings (OUP 2026)

The Last Kings of Macedonia and the Triumph of Rome (OUP 2023)

Athens After Empire: A History from Alexander the Great to the Emperor Hadrian (OUP 2021)

Ptolemy I: King and Pharaoh of Egypt (OUP 2016)

Lives of the Attic Orators: Pseudo-Plutarch, Photius and the Suda, with J. Roisman and R. Waterfield, Clarendon Ancient History Series (OUP 2015).

By the Spear. Philip II, Alexander the Great, and the Rise and Fall of the Macedonian Empire (OUP 2014)

Demosthenes of Athens and the Fall of Classical Greece (OUP 2013)

Philip II of Macedonia (Yale Univ. Press 2008)

Alexander the Great:Man and God (Pearson 2004)

Greek Orators Vol. 2, Dinarchus 1 and Hyperides 5 & 6 (Aris & Phillips 1999)

A Historical Commentary on Dinarchus. Rhetoric and Conspiracy in Later Fourth-Century Athens (Univ. Michigan Press 1992)

Some edited volumes:

Warfare in Fourth Century Athens: New Appraisals (Routledge 2026; co-edited with David Pritchard)

Fearmongering in Greek and Roman Literature and Beyond (Routledge 2026; co-edited with Priscilla Gontijo Leite)

Alexander the Great: A Reader, 2nd ed. (Routledge 2011)

A Companion to Ancient Macedonia (Blackwell 2010; co-edited with J. Roisman)

A Companion to Greek Rhetoric (Blackwell 2007)

Epea and Grammata: Oral and Written Communication in Ancient Greece (Brill 2002; co-edited with John Miles Foley)

Demosthenes: Statesman and Orator (Routledge 2000)

Voice Into Text. Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece (Brill 1996)

Ventures Into Greek History. Essays in Honour of N. G. L. Hammond (OUP 1994)

Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action (Routledge: 1994)

He is currently writing a monograph on Roxane, wife of Alexander the Great (for OUP in its 'Women in Antiquity' series). Since 2003 he has been Editor-in-Chief of the major international research project Brill's New Jacoby (BNJ), which has published so far the fragments with critical commentaries of c. 900 ancient historians (over 8,000,000 words!), involving a team of over 180 scholars in 24 countries.

In addition to many conference papers worldwide, he has given invited talks and keynote addresses in Australia, America, Canada, the UK, several European countries, Brazil, and Japan, as well as national and radio and TV interviews and podcasts, founded the Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece conference series, appeared in the 2011 BBC TV series Ancient Worlds, and has a ‘Great Courses’ DVD and CD titled The Long Shadow of the Ancient Greek World, released in 2008.

In 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (London) and in 2020 he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (London).

Also in 2019, he and Assoc. Prof. David Pritchard (UQ) won an ARC Discovery Project Grant of over $141,000 for their research project 'Democratic Athens at War'.

A willing victim of Hallyu, his little spare time is spent listening to k-pop, watching k-dramas, and even grappling with Korean.

Greek History, Greek Oratory.