Sarah E. Bond is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Iowa. She is interested in late Roman history, epigraphy, late antique law, Roman topography and GIS, Digital Humanities, and the socio-legal experience of ancient marginal peoples.

She earned a PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2011) and obtained a BA in Classics and History with a minor in Classical Archaeology from the University of Virginia (2005). Her book, Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Professionals in the Roman Mediterranean, was published with the University of Michigan Press in 2016.

Follow her blog: History From Below.

Additionally, Bond is a regular contributor at Hyperallergic, a former columnist at the Los Angeles Review of Books, and a section editor at Public Books. She has written for The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Washington Post. 

Please visit Professor Bond's personal website for her current CV.

Awards and service

Erling B. “Jack” Holtsmark Associate Professor in the Classics (August 2023-Present) 

Publications

Books

• Strike: Labor, Unions, and Resistance in the Roman Empire (2025)
• Trade and Taboo Disreputable Professions in the Roman Mediterranean (2016)

Articles

• "’Feasts and Harlots, Baths and Idleness’: The Geography of Billeted Troops in Late Antiquity” IN War and Community in Late Antiquity. Edited by Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa. Cambridge University Press, pp 180-207 (2026)
• “The State, Governance, and Regulation in Ancient Shopping" in A Cultural History of Shopping, eds. Mary Harlow and Ray Laurence (2022)
• “Chapter 7: Maintaining the City Enslaved Labor and Trade in Roman Philippi” in Philippi, From Colonia Augusta to Communitas Christiana: Religion and Society in Transition, eds. Steven J. Friesen, Michalis Lychounas, and Daniel N. Schowalter, Brill (2021)
• with Paul Dilley and Ryan Horne (eds.), “Linked Open Data for the Ancient Mediterranean: Structures, Practices, Prospects,” ISAW Papers 20 (2021)

Commentary and Popular Writing

• "Archaeologists Discover Mummy Buried with Lines from Homer's Iliad" Hyperallergic (May 12, 2026)
• "How Much Did It Cost to Paint a Pompeii Room Egyptian Blue?" Hyperallergic (Mar 13, 2026)
• “How Rome’s Rulers Tried to Stamp Out the Right to Protest" Jacobin, (Aug 2025)
• "Why Does Elon Musk Have Such a Straight View of Antiquity?” Hyperallergic (Jul 21, 2025)
• “Why Are We Still Obsessed With Pompeii?” Hyperallergic, (May 26, 2025)
• “New Research Shows Slavery’s Outsized Role in Pompeii’s Economy.” Hyperallergic, (May 4, 2025)
• “The Insidious False History of Gladiator II,” Hyperallergic (Nov 26, 2024)
• "Lebanon’s Ancient Heritage Under Threat as Israel Ramps Up Attacks" Hyperallergic (Nov 5, 2024)
• "Why Do We Expect Ancient Romans to Have British Accents in Movies?" Hyperallergic (Aug 12, 2024)
• "The Enslaved People Who Wrote Down the New Testament" Hyperallergic (Jul 28, 2024)
• "Did Archaeologists Discover Pliny the Elder’s Famous Roman Villa?" Hyperallergic (Feb 2024)
• "Unearthed Clay Seals Shed Light on Ancient Roman Archiving Practices" Hyperallergic (Nov 2023)
• "As a History Professor, This Is How I Use AI in Class" Hyperallergic (Nov 2023)
• "What men are thinking about when they think about the Roman Empire" MSNBC (Sep 2023)
• "2,000-Year-Old Grave of Roman Doctor Unearthed in Hungary" Hyperallergic (May 2023)
• "The Meaning of Ancient Greek and Roman Artisan Signatures" Hyperallergic (Mar 2023)
• "Why Did Roman Baths Disappear?" Hyperallergic (Dec 2022)
• "An Iowa Museum Renowned for Its Pollock Emerges From a Flood With a More Inclusive Mission" Hyperallergic (Sep 2022)
• "Massive Head of Hercules Pulled From Historic Shipwreck" Hyperallergic (Jun 2022)
• "The Top Archaeological Discoveries of 2021"Hyperallergic (Jan 2022)
• "Ancient Hellscapes, Santa & Supply Chains, and More" Pasts Imperfect (Dec 2021)
• "The Story of the Black King Among the Magi" Hyperallergic (Jan 2020)
• "Public Writing and the Junior Scholar" Chronicle of Higher Education (2019)
• "Why the Hell We Are Obsessed with Hell"
• "What Can Shackled and Beheaded Skeletons Reveal About Roman Servitude?"
• "Anti-vaxxers are claiming centuries of Jewish suffering to look like martyrs"
• "Discovery of an Industrial Brewery in Ancient Egypt Rewrites the History of Beer"
• "A World-Famous Ancient Collection, on Display for the First Time, Awaits Visitors in Rome"
• "Identifying Slut-Shaming, Racism, and Transphobia in the Byzantine World"
• "How Academics, Egyptologists, and Even Melania Trump Benefit From Colonialist Cosplay"
• "How Racial Bias in Tech Has Developed the 'New Jim Code'”
• "Seeing Through the History of Ancient Roman Glass"
• "Did the Ancient Romans Use Infographics?"

Reviews

• Review of Miriam J. Groen-Vallinga’s Work and Labour in the Cities of Roman Italy. Liverpool studies in Ancient History, Vol 1, Cambridge University Press (Oct 2024)
• Review of Machado, Carlos, Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome: AD 270-535. The Journal of Roman Studies 111 (2021): 334 - 336
• Review of Levin-Richardson, Sarah The Brothel of Pompeii: Sex, Class, and Gender at the Margins of Roman Society. History Today 69.10 (2019)