Ronald Syme - Wikipedia Ronald Syme From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search New Zealand born British historian and classicist (1903-1989) This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Ronald Syme" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (April 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Sir Ronald Syme OM FBA Born (1903-03-11)11 March 1903 Eltham, New Zealand Died 4 September 1989(1989-09-04) (aged 86) Oxford, England Nationality New Zealander, British Academic background Education New Plymouth Boys' High School Alma mater University of Auckland Victoria University of Wellington Oriel College, Oxford Academic work Discipline Ancient historian Sub-discipline Roman history Crisis of the Roman Republic Roman army prosopography Institutions Trinity College, Oxford Brasenose College, Oxford Wolfson College, Oxford Doctoral students Barbara Levick Miriam T. Griffin Fergus Millar Notable works The Roman Revolution (1939) Sir Ronald Syme, OM, FBA (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist.[1][2] His great work was The Roman Revolution (1939), a masterly and controversial analysis of Roman political life in the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar. Contents 1 Life 2 Major works 3 Legacy 4 References 5 Further reading 6 External links Life[edit] Syme was born to David and Florence Syme in Eltham, New Zealand, where he attended primary and secondary school; a bad case of measles seriously damaged his vision during this period. He moved to New Plymouth Boys' High School (a house of which bears his name today) at the age of 15, and was head of his class for both of his two years. He continued to the University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington, where he studied French language and literature while working on his degree in Classics. He was then educated at Oriel College, Oxford between 1925 and 1927, gaining First Class honours in Literae Humaniores (ancient history and philosophy). In 1926, he won the Gaisford Prize for Greek Prose for translating a section of Thomas More's Utopia into Platonic prose, and the following year won the Prize again (for Verse) for a translation of part of William Morris's Sigurd the Volsung into Homeric hexameters. His first scholarly work was published by the Journal of Roman Studies in 1928.[3] In 1929 he became a Fellow of Trinity College, where he became known for his studies of the Roman army and the frontiers of the Empire. During the Second World War, he worked as a press attaché in the British Embassies of Belgrade (where he acquired a knowledge of Serbo-Croatian) and Ankara, later taking a chair in classical philology at Istanbul University. His refusal to discuss the nature of his work during this period led some to speculate that he worked for the British intelligence services in Turkey, but proof for this hypothesis is lacking. Sir Ronald's work at Unesco is referred to in the autobiographical works of a collaborator, Jean d'Ormesson. After being elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1944, Syme was appointed Camden Professor of Ancient History at Brasenose College, Oxford in 1949, a position which he held until his retirement in 1970. Syme was also appointed Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford from 1970 until the late 1980s, where an annual lecture was established in his memory. Syme was knighted in 1959 and received the Order of Merit in 1976. He continued his prolific writing and editing until his death at the age of 86. Major works[edit] The work for which Syme is chiefly remembered, The Roman Revolution (1939), is widely considered a masterly and controversial analysis of Roman political life in the period following the 44 BCE assassination of Julius Caesar. Inspired by the rise of fascist regimes in Germany and Italy, and following Tacitus in both literary style and pessimistic insight, the work challenged prevailing attitudes concerning the last years of the Roman Republic. Syme's main conclusion was that the structure of the Republic and its Senate were inadequate for the needs of Roman rule; Augustus merely did what was necessary to restore order in public life, but was a dictatorial figure whose true nature was cloaked by the panegyrics written to honour him in his last years and after his death. "The Roman constitution", Syme wrote, "was a screen and a sham"; Octavian's supposed restoration of the Republic was a pretence on which he had built a monarchy based on personal relationships and the ambition of Rome's political families. In The Roman Revolution Syme first used, with dazzling effect, the historical method of prosopography—tracing the linkages of kinship, marriage, and shared interest among the various leading families of republican and imperial Rome. By stressing prosopographical analysis, Syme rejected the force of ideas in politics, dismissing most such invocations of constitutional and political principle as nothing more than "political catchwords". In this bleak cynicism about political ideas and political life, The Roman Revolution strongly resembled another controversial historical masterwork, The Structure of English Politics at the Accession of George III, published in 1930 by the specialist in eighteenth-century British political history, Sir Lewis B. Namier. Syme's next great work was his definitive two-volume biography of Tacitus (1958), his favourite among the ancient historians. The work's forty-five chapters and ninety-five appendices make up the most complete study of Tacitus yet produced, backed by an exhaustive treatment of the historical and political background—the Empire's first century—of his life. Syme blended biographical investigation, historical narrative and interpretation, and literary analysis to produce what may be the single most thorough study of a major historian ever published.[citation needed] In 1958 Oxford University Press published Colonial Élites. Rome, Spain and the Americas, which presents the three lectures that Syme offered at McMaster University in January 1958 as part of the Whidden Lectures. Syme compares the three empires that have endured for the longest periods of time in Western History: Rome, Spain, and Britain. Syme considers that the duration of an Empire links directly to the character of the men who are in charge of the imperial administration, in particular that of the colonies. In his own words, the "strength and vitality of an empire is frequently due to the new aristocracy from the periphery". This book is currently out of print.[4] Syme's biography of Sallust (1964), based on his Sather Lectures at the University of California, is also regarded[5][6] as authoritative. His four books and numerous essays on the Historia Augusta firmly established the fraudulent nature of that work; he famously dubbed the anonymous author "a rogue grammarian".[7] His History in Ovid (1978) places the great Roman poet Ovid firmly in his social context. Syme's The Augustan Aristocracy (1986) traces the prominent families under Augustus as a sequel to The Roman Revolution. Syme examined how and why Augustus promoted bankrupt patrician families and new politicians simultaneously to forge a coalition in government that would back his agenda for a new Rome. A posthumous work (edited for publication by A. Birley), Anatolica (1995), is devoted to Strabo and deals with the geography of southern Armenia and mainly eastern parts of Asia Minor. His shorter works are collected in the seven volumes of Roman Papers (1979–1991), the first two volumes of which are edited by E. Badian, and the remainder by Anthony Birley. Syme's doctoral students at the University of Oxford included Barbara Levick (whose thesis in the mid-1950s dealt with Roman colonies in south Asia Minor), and Miriam T. Griffin (1968), whose thesis was entitled Seneca: the statesman and the writer. Legacy[edit] Victoria University of Wellington's Classics Department holds a lecture in Syme's honour every two years. References[edit] ^ "Ronald Syme, 86, Classics Scholar And Historian at Oxford, Is Dead", The New York Times, 7 September 1989 ^ Bowersock, G. W. (March 1991). "Ronald Syme (March 11, 1903 – September 4, 1989)". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 135 (1): 118–122. JSTOR 987156. ^ "Rhine and Danube Legions under Domitian", Journal of Roman Studies 18 (1928) 41–55; see Anthony Birley, "Editor's Introduction", in The Provincial at Rome (Presses Université Laval, 2000), p. xi online and pp. xi–xx on Syme's publications and scholarly career. ^ "Colonial Élites. Rome, Spain and the Americas – Sir Ronald Syme". Francisco Vázquez. Archived from the original on 30 June 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2010. ^ Earl, D. C. (1965). "Sallust by Ronald Syme". The Journal of Roman Studies. 55: 232–240. JSTOR 297442. ^ Sumner, G. V. (September 1965). "Sallust by Ronald Syme". Phoenix (classics journal). 19 (1): 240–244. JSTOR 1086288. ^ Emperors and Biography (Oxford, 1971), p. 263. Further reading[edit] Edmond, Martin (2017). The Expatriates. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books. pp. 104–179. ISBN 978-1-988533-17-9. Obituaries of Syme appear in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (vol. 135, no. 1, 119–122) and in The Journal of Roman Studies (vol. 80, xi–xiv) Mitchell, S. (1989). "Obituary: Sir Ronald Syme". Anatolian Studies. 39: 17. doi:10.1017/s0066154600007626. JSTOR 3642808. External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ronald Syme. Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ronald Syme Academic offices Preceded by Hugh Last Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford University 1949–1970 Succeeded by Peter Brunt v t e Prosopography Publications Prosopographia Imperii Romani Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit Prosopography of ancient Rome Projects Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England Prosopography of the Byzantine World Prosopographers A. H. M. Jones John Morris John Robert Martindale Friedrich Münzer T. R. S. Broughton Ronald Syme T. P. Wiseman Erich S. Gruen Lily Ross Taylor Ernst Badian Authority control General Integrated Authority File ISNI 1 VIAF 1 WorldCat National libraries Spain France (data) Italy United States Japan Czech Republic Greece Korea Netherlands Poland Vatican Other Faceted Application of Subject Terminology Social Networks and Archival Context SUDOC (France) 1 Trove (Australia) 1 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ronald_Syme&oldid=1015502207" Categories: 1903 births 1989 deaths People from Eltham, New Zealand University of Auckland alumni New Zealand historians New Zealand classical scholars Scholars of Roman history Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford Fellows of Trinity College, Oxford Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford Fellows of the British Academy New Zealand members of the Order of Merit Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class) Knights Bachelor Prosopographers of ancient Rome Camden Professors of Ancient History 20th-century historians 20th-century British writers 20th-century New Zealand writers People educated at New Plymouth Boys' High School Victoria University of Wellington alumni 20th-century British historians New Zealand emigrants to the United Kingdom Historians of ancient Rome Hidden categories: Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Articles needing additional references from February 2012 All articles needing additional references Articles that may contain original research from April 2017 All articles that may contain original research Articles with multiple maintenance issues Use British English from August 2014 Use dmy dates from August 2014 Articles with hCards All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from October 2009 Commons category link is on Wikidata Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with ICCU identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLG identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with FAST identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Languages العربية Azərbaycanca Deutsch Español Français Galego Bahasa Indonesia Íslenska Italiano עברית Latina مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Русский Edit links This page was last edited on 1 April 2021, at 21:00 (UTC). 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