I was a Laidlaw Scholar at the University of Oxford in 2018, conducting my research at Oxford during the summer with the Classics Faculty. My area of interest is the Middle and Late Roman Republic, specifically the ways in which political culture and ideology shaped the way that Romans conducted themselves, both internally and in their international relations. A part of this general interest, my Laidlaw research focussed on the early 2nd century BC and the way individual senators experienced politics: the methods they used to gain influence, the friendship networks that they built, the speeches that they made. This provided a different insight into the political happenings of the 2nd century and the political culture in which the aristocracy participated. My future research hopes to focus on the relationship between ideology and imperialism.