Category: Languages, Literatures and Cultures
From Salamanca to Newark, Dr. Marcaline Boyd Found Her Place in the Classics
May 06, 2025 Written by Riley Bell, DLLC Student Ambassador
How often do you think about power? At thirteen years old, Dr. Marcaline Boyd, Assistant Professor of Classics in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, was struck by the ways that power and the knowledge of power can change the world around us.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Dr. Boyd attended high school in Delaware, but spent part of her youth living in Sweden. One year, while on spring holiday in Spain, her family found themselves standing on the Roman bridge of Salamanca. Having worked in engineering fields for their whole careers, her parents both marveled at the bridge—an engineering feat dating back to the first century BCE, when the Roman Empire occupied the Iberian Peninsula.
“Like all teenagers, I was… feigning disinterest, right? Because one never wants to show that they share the same interest as their parents at that age,” she recalls.
Dr. Boyd, on the other hand, was fascinated by what the bridge meant for ancient civilizations. What kind of power must the Roman Empire have wielded to influence the world so permanently? How was that power consolidated and organized?
She continued, “I really remember being struck just by the breadth and extent of Roman imperialism, power, and the impact that it can have on a landscape.”
With these questions in mind, Dr. Boyd started her undergraduate career at Franklin and Marshall College, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Ancient History and Classical Archaeology and French. It wasn’t just these major areas that drove her, however: History of Ancient Greece, a freshman year elective, gave Dr. Boyd the “Aha!” moment that determined the rest of her career.
“If it’s a zombie apocalypse and just me, and a book, and a candle, what am I going to be doing?” she asked herself. “We were looking at these [monumental grave] remains, and I just remember thinking to myself: this stuff is so cool, and I want to do it forever.” The rest, she says, is history.
Before completing her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Classics at Florida State University, Dr. Boyd first spent two years in a post-baccalaureate program in rigorous Ancient Greek and Latin training, working at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books, and Manuscripts.
Returning Home: The Path to UD
In the seven years of study that spanned her M.A. and Ph.D., Dr. Boyd also spent time studying abroad in Athens—once at the American Classical School of Athens, and once at the British School of Athens, where she received specialized training in epigraphy.
“If we’re really being authentic to Greece and Rome, I would say τύχη —tyche, which means good fortune, in Ancient Greek.”
It was τύχη that brought Dr. Boyd back to Delaware, and, ultimately, to UD. With the support of a grant which allowed her to write and research from anywhere in the world, she chose to finish her dissertation at Penn.
“I was kind of close by, and tyche came my way, or fortune had it that I had an acquaintance who was already teaching here at UD. When I learned that he had gotten another job, I reached out to the then-chair,” she explained.
She opened a dialogue with the then-chair of the Classics and shared her teaching experience, research interests, and passion, thus starting her time with the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.
Dr. Boyd describes the Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at UD as “a small program, but a mighty program.” The faculty itself is small—about two to three professors teach for the department. That, however, makes both the Classics professors and their students mighty.
“We have to wear a lot of hats, in a good way. We regularly get to teach Ancient Greek and Latin from the elementary level through the advanced level, so we have to do it all. It’s so much fun to be able to do all of those different levels and see students at all of those different points in their journey,” she remarks. That small faculty and student body gives the department a small-town feel where she says every professor and faculty can feel invested in each other’s success.
Courses and Student Engagement
Teaching in this role has also allowed Dr. Boyd to meet students from a vast diversity of backgrounds. Two-thirds of the Ancient Greek and Roman studies courses touch on topics in civilization, architecture, literature, and archaeology, and they are taught in English.
“It is a true joy. We get to meet students from different departments, different colleges, and different disciplinary backgrounds, and they’re not just fun classes to teach. What I think makes them so fun is having all these different students from all of these different areas of the university.”
Now, her focus is on power. It is like a thread that’s woven into her classes and research. Her upcoming book project addresses patterns of tyranny in Greek history, examining the formation of tyranny according to the Greek political imagination and the variety and hybridity of tyrants in Greek historical writing.
“Who has power? How did they get power? How do they hold onto it? How do they use it?” These are the fundamental questions she seeks to address through historiographical research that considers the perspectives of tyrants and marginalized groups in Ancient Greece. Among other conclusions, her research challenges the “monolithic, predominantly negative construct of the tyrant,” showing the variability and complexity of the construction of tyrants.
Whether you're interested in myth, monuments, or the messy politics of ancient empires, Dr. Boyd's courses offer students a powerful lens into how the ancient world continues to shape our own. This fall, she’ll be teaching courses in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Greek and Roman civilization, all open to students from across majors and disciplines. It’s a chance to engage directly with the very questions that sparked her passion: Who holds power, how is it built, and what legacy does it leave behind? If you’ve ever wondered what ancient voices might say about the world we live in today, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to learn from her.
