Editing Ronald Syme

{{Short description|New Zealand born British historian and classicist (1903–1989)}}
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{{Infobox academic
| honorific_prefix = [[Sir]]
| name = Ronald Syme
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OM|FBA}}
| image = Ronald Syme.jpg
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| birth_name = <!-- use only if different from full/othernames -->
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1903|3|11}}
| birth_place = [[Eltham, New Zealand|Eltham]], New Zealand
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1989|9|4|1903|3|11}}
| death_place = Eltham, New Zealand
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| nationality = New Zealander, British
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| education = [[New Plymouth Boys' High School]]
| alma_mater = {{plain list|
* [[University of Auckland]]
* [[Victoria University of Wellington]]
* [[Oriel College, Oxford]] }}
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| discipline = [[Ancient historian]]
| sub_discipline = {{hlist|[[Roman history]]|[[Crisis of the Roman Republic]]|[[Roman army]]|[[prosopography]]}}
| workplaces = {{plain list|
* [[Trinity College, Oxford]]
* [[Brasenose College, Oxford]]
* [[Wolfson College, Oxford]] }}
| doctoral_students = [[Barbara Levick]] <br /> [[Miriam T. Griffin]] <br /> [[Fergus Millar]]
| notable_students = <!--only those with WP articles-->
| main_interests = 
| notable_works = ''[[The Roman Revolution]]'' (1939)
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'''Sir Ronald Syme''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|sep=,|size=100%|OM|FBA}} (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a [[New Zealand]]-born historian and [[classics|classicist]].<ref>{{citation |title= Ronald Syme, 86, Classics Scholar And Historian at Oxford, Is Dead |journal= [[The New York Times]] |date= September 7, 1989 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/07/obituaries/ronald-syme-86-classics-scholar-and-historian-at-oxford-is-dead.html}}</ref><ref name="Bowersock 1991 pp. 119–122">{{cite journal | last=Bowersock | first=G. W. |author-link=Glen Bowersock | title=Ronald Syme (March 11, 1903 – September 4, 1989) | journal=Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society | publisher=American Philosophical Society | volume=135 | issue=1 | year=1991 | issn=0003-049X | jstor=987156 | pages=119–122 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/987156 | access-date=9 May 2022}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="Bowersock 1991 pp. 119–122" /> 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 [[Eltham, New Zealand]] in 1903, where he attended primary. He then attended high school at [[Stratford High School, New Zealand|Stratford District High School]], where a teacher noticed his talent and interest in languages.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Stoneman |first=Walter |last2=Taonga |first2=New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu |title=Scholarship boys: Ronald Syme |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/44348/scholarship-boys-ronald-syme |access-date=2025-05-28 |website=teara.govt.nz |language=en}}</ref> 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 [[French literature|literature]] while working on his degree in [[Classics]]. He then attended [[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 (More book)|Utopia]]'' into Platonic prose, and the following year won the Prize again (for Verse) for a translation of part of [[William Morris]]'s ''[[The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs|Sigurd the Volsung]]'' into [[Homer]]ic [[hexameter]]s.

His first scholarly work was published by the ''[[Journal of Roman Studies]]'' in 1928.<ref>"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 [https://books.google.com/books?id=D5IxWxCgFFwC&dq=%22Syme%27s+first+published+work%22&pg=PR11 online] and pp. xi–xx on Syme's publications and scholarly career.</ref> In 1929 he became a Fellow of [[Trinity College, Oxford]], where he became known for his studies of the [[Roman army]] and the [[Limes (Roman Empire)|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. He was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]] and the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] the same year.<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Ronald+Syme&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-12-06 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Ronald Syme |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/ronald-syme |access-date=2022-12-06 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}</ref> He  received the [[Order of Merit (Commonwealth)|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, ''[[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 [[Fascism|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 of the Roman Republic|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"; [[Caesar Augustus|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 [[Roman Principate|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 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 [[Tacitean studies|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|date= October 2009}}

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 [[Ontario]] 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: [[Roman Empire|Rome]], [[Spanish Empire|Spain]], and [[British Empire|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.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://lasfloresdelmarinero.blogspot.com/2010/05/colonial-elites-rome-spain-and-americas.html |title= Colonial Élites. Rome, Spain and the Americas – Sir Ronald Syme |publisher= Francisco Vázquez |access-date= 15 May 2010 |url-status= dead |archive-url= https://archive.today/20120630023402/http://lasfloresdelmarinero.blogspot.com/2010/05/colonial-elites-rome-spain-and-americas.html |archive-date= 30 June 2012 |df= dmy-all }}</ref>

Syme's biography of [[Sallust]] (1964), based on his [[Sather Lectures]] at the [[University of California]], is also regarded<ref>{{cite journal |last=Earl |first= D. C. |title= Sallust by Ronald Syme |journal=[[The Journal of Roman Studies]] |pages= 232–240 |volume= 55 |date=1965 |doi= 10.2307/297442 |jstor= 297442 |s2cid= 161240896 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Sumner |first= G. V. |title= Sallust by Ronald Syme |journal=[[Phoenix (classics journal)|Phoenix]] |pages= 240–244 |volume= 19 |issue=1 |date=September 1965 |doi= 10.2307/1086288 |jstor= 1086288 }}</ref> as authoritative. His four books and numerous essays on the ''[[Historia Augusta]]'', including the publication ''Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta,''<ref>{{Cite book|last=Syme|first=Sir Ronald|title=Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1971|language=English}}</ref> firmly established the fraudulent nature of that work; he famously dubbed the anonymous author "a rogue grammarian".<ref>''Emperors and Biography'' (Oxford, 1971), p. 263.</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ward|first=Alan M.|date=1971|title=Emperors and Biography. Studies in the Historia Augusta by Ronald Syme|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/i403772|journal=The Classical World|volume=65|pages=100–101|doi=10.2307/4347597 |jstor=4347597 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=White|first=Peter|date=1972|title=Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta by Ronald Syme|url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/77/4/1101/54648?redirectedFrom=fulltext|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=77|pages=1101–1102|doi=10.2307/1859532 |jstor=1859532 |via=Oxford Academic|url-access=subscription}}</ref> 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').<ref>{{Cite book|last=Syme|first=Sir Ronald|title=Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1971|pages=8|language=English}}</ref> 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..."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Syme|first=Sir Ronald|title=Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta|publisher=Clarendon Press|year=1971|pages=14|language=English}}</ref> – "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 (ancient Rome)|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 [[Anthony 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 [[Ernst 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==
* [[Victoria University of Wellington]]'s Classics Department holds a lecture in Syme's honour every two years.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last= Edmond |first= Martin | author-link = Martin Edmond|title= The Expatriates  |year= 2017  |publisher= [[Bridget Williams Books]] |location= Wellington  |isbn= 978-1-988533-17-9  |pages= 104–179 }}
* 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)
* {{cite journal |last= Mitchell |first= S. |volume= 39  |year= 1989 |title=Obituary: Sir Ronald Syme |journal= [[Anatolian Studies]] |page= 17 |jstor= 3642808 |doi=10.1017/s0066154600007626|doi-access= free }}

==External links==
{{commons category|Ronald Syme}}
{{wikiquote}}

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{{succession box
|before=[[Hugh Last]]
|after=[[Peter Brunt]]
|title=[[Camden Professor of Ancient History]], [[Oxford University]]
|years=1949–1970
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{{Classical prosopography}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Syme, Ronald}}
[[Category:1903 births]]
[[Category:1989 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Eltham, New Zealand]]
[[Category:University of Auckland alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century New Zealand historians]]
[[Category:New Zealand classical scholars]]
[[Category:Alumni of Oriel College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of Trinity College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]]
[[Category:New Zealand members of the Order of Merit]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)]]
[[Category:New Zealand Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Prosopographers of ancient Rome]]
[[Category:Camden Professors of Ancient History]]
[[Category:20th-century New Zealand male writers]]
[[Category:People educated at New Plymouth Boys' High School]]
[[Category:Victoria University of Wellington alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century British historians]]
[[Category:New Zealand emigrants to the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Historians of ancient Rome]]
[[Category:British expatriates in Turkey]]
[[Category:Presidents of The Roman Society]]
[[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]]