I was born just a few miles from Exeter and have been an Honorary Fellow in the department since 1996. I spent thirty years as a classics editor, most of those years for Routledge; since retiring from that role in 2006, and returning from London to live in Devon, I have been taking an active part in university affairs, including teaching, research and a planned conference.

The core of my research interests has been the continuity of the Greek world and Greek tradition up to the present day. I have written anthologies and travel guides reflecting this interest. Since the early 1980s the main focus of my research has been Alexander the Great, especially in later legend. I have recently participated in several international conferences on the Ancient Novel and on Philip and Alexander. I am currently writing a biography of Xerxes and a study of Megasthenes.

Besides Latin and Greek, my languages include fluent German and adequate French, Italian and Modern Greek. I am taking classes in Turkish and Persian.

I am also Chairman of Westminster Classic Tours (www.westminsterclassictours.com), a company which runs gület tours to classical sites around the Turkish coast and Greek Islands.

In 2009 I was appointed Consulting Editor in Classics to I.B. Tauris Publishers in London, and am actively seeking new authors for their classics programme, and for the series I edit, 'Understanding Classics'.

In 2010 I organised a conference at Exeter University, in conjunction with the Institute of Arab and islamic Studies, on 'The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East'. There were delegates from every continent.

Here is a list of my books:

• Daphne into Laurel; Translations of Classical Poetry from Chaucer to the Present (Duckworth 1982; pb 1991)
• A Literary Companion to Travel in Greece (Penguin 1984; new edition, The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1994. There is also a Greek edition)
• Land of Lost Gods: The Search for Classical Greece (Hutchinson and University of Oklahoma Press 1987. There is also a Greek edition. Paperback reissue I.B. Tauris 2010)
• Across the Hellespont: Travellers in Turkey from Herodotus to Freya Stark (Hutchinson 1987. Paperback reissue I.B. Tauris 2010)
• Grecia: Guida Culturale (Giunti, Florence 1991: French edition also published)
• The Greek Alexander Romance (Penguin 1991)
• Greek Mythology: An Encyclopaedia of Myth and Legend (HarperCollins 1991)
• Palmyra and its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt against Rome (University of Michigan Press 1993)
• Traveller's History of Turkey (Windrush Press 1993. There is also a Finnish edition)
• Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context (ed., with J.R. Morgan, Routledge 1994)
• Turchia: Guida Culturale (with Stefano Masi: Giunti 1993)
• Legends of Alexander the Great (Everyman 1994. Second edition I.B. Tauris 2012)
• Pindar; re-edition with new material of G.S. Conway's translation for Everyman Library (1997)
• Alexander the Great (Routledge: Lancaster Pamphlet, 1997; second edition 2004. There is also a Portuguese edition and editions in both standard and simplified Chinese)
• A Luminous Land: Artists Discover Greece (J. Paul Getty Museum 1998)
• Il Romanzo di Alessandro. Volume I of this three volume edition and commentary of the three ancient Greek (and one Latin) recensions was published by Mondadori (Fondazione Valla) in 2007, volume II in 2012, and volume III should follow after another such interval. Thereafter, an English edition will one day appear from Oxford.
• Alexander the Great: a Life in Legend (Yale University Press 2007.  Greek edition, Topos Publishers 2011)
• The Book of Alexander the Great (translation of  the Modern Greek Phyllada tou Megalexantrou) . (I.B. Tauris 2012
• The Ancient Oracles: making the gods speak (Yale University Press 2011)
• The Alexander Romance in Persia and the East, edited with Kyle Erickson and Ian Netton (Groningen: Barkhuis 2012)
• Pindar ('Understanding Classics' series, I.B. Tauris, late 2013)