Stephen L. Dyson is Park Professor of Classics at the University at Buffalo and past president of the Archaeological Institute of America. He has done extensive archaeological fieldwork in Italy and has published on the Roman frontier, Roman community, and the history of classical archaeology.

Resourceful and imaginative, [Dyson] looks into the humdrum, sometimes quietly desperate lives of Italy's small towns and urban centers and brings them sharply to life. Vergilius A valuable example of how archaeological data can be used alongside conventional sources to produce compelling social and economic history. -- Keith Bradley American Historical Review An important addition to the literature on classical Rome... Highly recommended. Choice 2010