Paul J. Kosmin (born 1984) is a historian of theHellenistic period, the centuries after the conquests ofAlexander the Great that saw the spread of Greek culture and language across the Eastern Mediterranean and western Asia. His main focus is theSeleucid Empire, theMacedonian successor state that ruled Syria, Babylonia, Persia, and various adjoining regions at its height. He is a professor of classics atHarvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Kosmin attendedBalliol College atOxford University and graduated with a degree in Ancient and Modern History. He did his graduate program atHarvard University, where he completed a PhD in Ancient History and wrote his dissertation on theSeleucid Empire. Afterward, he attained an associate professorship in the Classics department at Harvard in 2012, and was given thenamed professorship of John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities in 2014.^[1]

In 2014, he publishedThe Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire, a popular adaptation of his dissertation on how the Seleucid Empire controlled its territory. In 2018, he publishedTime and Its Adversaries in the Seleucid Empire, a book on theSeleucid era, theAncient Macedonian calendar, the cultural impact of timekeeping in the Hellenistic world, and related topics.Time and Its Adversaries was a joint winner of theRunciman Award in 2019.^[2] Kosmin has since collaborated withAndrea Berlin, a professor of Archeology at Boston University, on several volumes of scholarly research. The two editedSpear-Won Land: Sardis from the King's Peace to the Peace of Apamea in 2019.Spear-Won Land is a compilation of journal articles and research on the city ofSardis in Asia Minor while it was under Seleucid rule until thePeace of Apamea, which saw it transferred to the Roman-alliedKingdom of Pergamon. In 2021, Kosmin and Berlin edited a collection of articles on the latest archeological findings and scholarship on the final stages of theMaccabean Revolt and the earlyHasmonean kingdom,The Middle Maccabees: Archaeology, History, and the Rise of the Hasmonean Kingdom. In 2024, he publishedThe Ancient Shore, a book on the coast and maritime influence on classical culture.

Kosmin was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship in 2021.^[3][4]

• 1984 births
• Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford
• Harvard University alumni
• Classical scholars of Harvard University
• Historians of antiquity
• Scholars of ancient Greek history
• Living people
• Runciman Award winners

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata