Paul J. Burton is a lecturer at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He has published on topics as diverse as ancient international law, the influence of the classics on George Orwell, and the influence of Sophocles' Oedipus the King on Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds. His most recent article is a comprehensive study of comparisons of Rome with the United States as global powers in print journalism and current affairs literature in the first decade of the 2000s.