Roel Konijnendijk

Konijnendijk was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Historical Research and Leiden. He has taught Greek History at Birkbeck, University of Warwick, University of Edinburgh, New College, Oxford, and Lincoln College, Oxford.^[4][5][6] He has contributed to a number of books on the topics of Classical Greek warfare,^[7] the military reforms of Iphicrates,^[8] Athenian democracy, and the military history of Sparta.^[9] He is also cited as an expert on the training and organization of Classical Greek and Persian armies.^[10]

He is a proponent of the theory that Greek warfare was both more brutal than some modern scholars have described, and that it was driven by practicality rather than ritual.^[11][12][13] His research challenges the so-called "California School" of Greek military scholarship, arguing that its theories were largely based on outdated 19th-century models.^[14][15]

In 2017, Konijnendijk published Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History.^[16] The book was well received, with praise for Konijnendijk's re-assessment of Greek tactics.^[17][18][19] With Cezary Kucewicz and Matthew Lloyd he edited Companion to Greek Land Warfare Beyond the Phalanx (2021), and also wrote three chapters of it.^[20]

He published his second monograph, Between Miltiades and Moltke: Early German Studies in Greek Military History, in 2022.^[21]

In September 2022, Konijnendijk was appointed Darby Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at Lincoln College, Oxford.^[22]

Konijnendijk is a moderator and panelist for r/AskHistorians, a history forum on Reddit.^[23][24] He has also written for a number of popular history magazines, including Ancient Warfare, Ancient History Magazine, Ancient World Magazine, BadAncient, and Desperta Ferro.^[1]

Since 2021, he has appeared in a series of videos for Insider, where he discusses the historical accuracy of well-known fantasy and historical drama films such as 300, Game of Thrones, Gladiator II, and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.^{[25][26][27][28]}

• Between Miltiades and Moltke: Early German Studies in Greek Military History. Brill Publishers. 2022.
• "The Face of Battle at Plataiai", in The Battle of Plataia 479 BC. Phoibos. 2022.
• "The eager amateur: unit cohesion and the Athenian hoplite phalanx", in Unit Cohesion in the Ancient World. Routledge. 2022.
• (ed. and contributor with C. Kucewicz and M. Lloyd). A Companion to Greek Land Warfare Beyond the Phalanx. Brill Publishers. 2021.
• "Legitimization of war" in A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Wiley-Blackwell. 2021.
• "Democracy as protection against intra-communal violence in Classical Greece", in Violence and Democracy. British Academy, 2019.
• "Commemoration through fear: the Spartan reputation as a weapon of war", in Commemorating War and War Dead: Ancient and Modern. Steiner Verlag, 2019.
• Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History. Brill Publishers. 2018.
• "Iphikrates the innovator and the historiography of Lechaion", in Iphicrates, Peltasts and Lechaeum. Akanthina, 2014.