Scott McGill’s work focuses on Latin poetry, Roman history and culture, and on the reception of classical antiquity. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Humanities Center, and he is a faculty fellow at Rice’s Center for Teaching Excellence. His course on Roman civilization often draws more than 100 students and is consistently one of the largest courses in the humanities at Rice, highlighting the continued importance of classical studies in today's world.

An expert on Virgil and the Latin poetry of late antiquity, McGill is the author of five books and editor of four critical volumes. His latest work, a translation of the Aeneid with Susannah Wright, has been published with W.W. Norton in 2025. 

Current projects include a commentary on Latin biblical epic (the poets Avitus and Sedulius). He is also a co-editor of the Oxford History of Late Antique Literature and a co-author of a textbook on Latin poetry for Routledge.

Selected Publications

1. Books and Edited Volumes

• Virgil, Aeneid 11: A Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
• Ed. with Edward J. Watts, A Companion to Late Antique Literature (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2018).
• Juvencus’ Four Books of the Gospels (New York: Routledge, 2016). Paperback edition 2017.
• Ed. with Joseph Pucci, Classics Renewed: Reception and Innovation in the Latin Poetry of Late Antiquity (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2016).
• Plagiarism in Latin Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Paperback edition 2020.
• Ed. with Cristiana Sogno and Edward Watts, From the Tetrarchs to the Theodosians: Later Roman History and Culture, 284-450 CE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
• Virgil Recomposed: The Mythological and Secular Virgilian Centos in Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

2. Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• “The Appendix Vergiliana,” in Charles Martindale and Fiachra Mac Góráin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 63-76.
• “Minor opus moveo: Verse Summaries of Virgil in the Anthologia Latina,” in Marco Formisano and Christina Shuttleworth Kraus (eds.), Canonicity and Marginality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 263-86.
• “Rewriting Ausonius,” in Jaś Elsner and ‎Jesús Hernández Lobato (eds.), The Poetics of Late Latin Literature(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 252-77.
• “Ausonius at Night,” American Journal of Philology 135 (2014), 123-48.
• “The Plagiarized Virgil in Donatus, Servius, and the Anthologia Latina,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology107 (2013), 365-83.
• “Latin Poetry,” in Scott Fitzgerald Johnson (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 335-60.
• “Tragic Virgil: Rewriting Virgil as a Tragedy in the Cento Medea,” Classical World 95/2 (2002), 143-61. 

Recent Courses

• CLAS 225 Augustus and the “Golden Age” of Rome
• CLAS 208 The Fall of Rome
• CLAS 108 Roman Civilization and Its Legacy
• LATI 301 Cicero and Sallust