Ronald Syme

Sir Ronald Syme (1903-1989) was a New Zealand-born historian, specialising in the Classical period. He graduated in Classics from Oriel College, Oxford, and in 1929 became a Fellow of Trinity. During the Second World War, he worked in the British Embassies of Belgrade and Ankara and as a professor at Istanbul University. In 1949, he was appointed Camden Professor of Ancient History within Oxford University. The work for which he is chiefly remembered, The Roman Revolution (1939), was a masterly analysis of Roman political life in the period following the assassination of Julius Caesar. His biographies of Tacitus (1958) and Sallust (1964) are also regarded as authoritative.