He is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities[1] and of the American Philosophical Society [2] Isaac was born in Geneva, Switzerland, where his parents settled in 1942 after fleeing the Netherlands during World War II.

In 1980, he received his PhD (summa cum laude) for a thesis on the Greek settlements in Thrace until the Macedonian conquest.

[5] It was commonly assumed that the main function of the Roman army was the defence of the frontier provinces against foreign enemies.

[6] It is a rationalization and systematization of prejudice first encountered in the 5th century BCE in Greece as a result of the development of abstract thinking in contemporary philosophy and medical science.

It assumes that geography, climate and other external realities impose definite and unchangeable qualities, physical and mental on entire groups of people.

), "Rome: an Empire of Many Nations, New Perspectives on Ethnic Diversity and Cultural Identity" (Cambridge University Press, 2021).