Ronald Syme

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

OM FBA
Born(1903-03-11)11 March 1903
Eltham, New Zealand
Died4 September 1989(1989-09-04) (aged 86)
NationalityNew Zealander, British
Academic background
EducationNew Plymouth Boys' High School
Alma mater
Academic work
Discipline
Roman history
  • Crisis of the Roman Republic
  • Roman army
  • prosopography
    • Institutions
    Doctoral studentsBarbara Levick
    Miriam T. Griffin
    Fergus Millar
    Notable worksThe Roman Revolution (1939)

    Sir Ronald Syme,

    OM, FBA (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist.[1][2] He was regarded as the greatest historian of ancient Rome since Theodor Mommsen and the most brilliant exponent of the history of the Roman Empire since Edward Gibbon.[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
    .

    Life

    Syme was born to David and Florence Syme in

    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

    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. He was elected to the

    Order of Merit
    in 1976. He continued his prolific writing and editing until his death at the age of 86.

    Major works

    The work for which Syme is chiefly remembered,

    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.[6]

    Syme's biography of

    Sather Lectures at the University of California, is also regarded[7][8] as authoritative. His four books and numerous essays on the Historia Augusta, including the publication Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta,[9] firmly established the fraudulent nature of that work; he famously dubbed the anonymous author "a rogue grammarian".[10] Allen M. Ward stated in The Classical World, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Nov., 1971), pp. 100–101, that: "No one interested in the H.A. or Roman history of the third century A.D. can ignore this book."[11] On the content of the book itself, Peter White writes: "Syme recovers portions, though miserably small portions, of the true history of the emperors from Severus Alexander to Diocletian. There are still other essays that escape this enumeration. Among them are two of the best in the book, an investigation of the patterns by which personal names have been faked and an expose of the procedures by which the biographer concocted the first five lives of pretenders and heirs apparent."[12] Syme gives 10 ways to decipher fictitious names in a chapter called 'Bogus Names'. He states: IX. Perverted names. One example is clear. Using Suetonius, the author changed 'Mummia' to 'Memmia' (Alex. 20. 3, cf. above). That is a mere trifle in the devices of the HA. If an author is anxious to be plausible, he may try to convey an impression of novelty (and hence of authenticity) by names that look original because different. Thus 'Avulnius' and 'Murrentius' (Aur. 13. I). One trick is to modify the shape of familiar names. Several instances have been detected. As consul in 258, the HA produces 'Nemmius Fuscus' (or 'Memmius Fuscus').[13] Regarding the HA authors' identity, Syme states: "From time to time the deceiver lowers the mask. For example, when scourging the follies and fraudulence of other biographers (whom he invents), notably 'Adius Junius Cordus'. The prime revelation occurs in the exordium of the Vita Aureliani.The Prefect of the City, after friendly and encouraging discourse on the high themes of history and veracity, tells the author to write as his fancy dictates. All the classical historians were liars, and he can join their company with a clear conscience..."[14]
    – "Well then, write as you will. You will be safe in saying whatever you wish, since you will have as comrades in falsehood those authors whom we admire for the style of their histories."(Aur. 2. 2)

    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

    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

    References

    1. ^ "Ronald Syme, 86, Classics Scholar And Historian at Oxford, Is Dead", The New York Times, 7 September 1989
    2. ^
      JSTOR 987156
      . Retrieved 9 May 2022.
    3. ^ "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.
    4. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
    5. ^ "Ronald Syme". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 6 December 2022.
    6. ^ "Colonial Élites. Rome, Spain and the Americas – Sir Ronald Syme". Francisco Vázquez. Archived from the original on 30 June 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2010.
    7. S2CID 161240896
      .
    8. JSTOR 1086288
      .
    9. ^ Syme, Sir Ronald (1971). Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta. Clarendon Press.
    10. ^ Emperors and Biography (Oxford, 1971), p. 263.
    11. JSTOR 4347597
      – via JSTOR.
    12. JSTOR 1859532
      – via Oxford Academic.
    13. ^ Syme, Sir Ronald (1971). Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta. Clarendon Press. p. 8.
    14. ^ Syme, Sir Ronald (1971). Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta. Clarendon Press. p. 14.

    Further reading

    External links

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