Ronald Syme retired in 1970 as Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford. His Roman Papers were reviewed in this journal in January of this year.
Erudite controversies serve a variety of purposes. On the lowest count they afford nutriment, unfailing even if meagre, to tired and traditional topics. Industry reaps easy reward since bibliographies abound. There is a further benefit if the evidence never offered prospects of a solution.
During the fifty years that have elapsed since the publication of the earliest of the essays collected in these volumes, there has been a revolution in the study of Roman history in which Ronald...
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