Matthew Freeman Trundle (12 October 1965 – 12 July 2019) was a British-born New Zealand academic. From 1999 until 2012 he was a member of the Classics Programme at Victoria University of Wellington. From 2012 until his death in 2019 he was a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Auckland .

Born in London, England, in 1965, Trundle was the son of Reginald and Elizabeth (née Sydney) Trundle.^[1][2] He studied at the University of Nottingham, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts with joint honours.^[3] He then completed a Master of Arts in Roman History and a PhD in Greek history at McMaster University in Canada.^[3] The title of his doctoral thesis, supervised by Daniel J. Geagan, was The classical Greek mercenary and his relationship to the Greek polis.^[4]

After a period teaching at Glendon College in Toronto, and carrying out research at excavations in Corinth and Isthmia in Greece, Trundle was appointed as a lecturer in classics at Victoria University of Wellington.^[3] He rose to the rank of associate professor in 2011, before being appointed to a chair in classics and ancient history at the University of Auckland the following year.^[3] His research interests were primarily related to ancient Greek economic, social and military history.^[3]

His wife, Catherine Trundle, is a member of the Anthropology Programme at Victoria University of Wellington.^[5] Matthew Trundle died from leukaemia in Wellington on 12 July 2019.^[1][5]

• Trundle, Matthew (2004). Greek mercenaries: from the late archaic to Alexander. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415338123.
• Fagan, Garrett G.; Trundle, Matthew, eds. (2010). New perspectives on ancient warfare. History of Warfare. Vol. 59. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-9004185982.
• Trundle, Matthew (2017). "Coinage and democracy: economic redistribution as the basis of democratic Athens". In Evans, Richard J. (ed.). Mass and elite in the Greek and Roman worlds: from Sparta to late antiquity. Acta Classica. Vol. 7. pp. 11–20.
• Trundle, Matthew (2020). "Violence, Law, and Community in Classical Athens.". In Fagan, G.G. (ed.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Cambridge University Press. pp. 533–49.