Ronald Syme

Sir Ronald Syme (* March 11, 1903 in Eltham, New Zealand, † 4 September 1989 in Oxford ) was a native of Zealand historian. He became famous for his work The Roman Revolution of 1939. Syme is considered one of the most important historian of the 20th century.

Life

Symes ancestors were originally from Scotland, but he himself was deeply attached to his native New Zealand and also gave his New Zealand citizenship never on. Syme studied from 1921 Latin and Ancient History, from 1922 Greek at Victoria College, now the Victoria University of Wellington, in 1925 at Oriel College, University of Oxford, where he was awarded three prizes for Latin and Greek prose and poetry. From 1929 he taught at the city's Trinity College as a fellow and " Tutor in Ancient History".

During World War II Syme worked, as he had also mastered the Serbo-Croatian in addition to some other languages ​​, first 1940-1941 for the British Foreign Office to the Embassy in Belgrade as a press attaché. After the German occupation of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he went to the embassy in Ankara. At the University of Istanbul, he was nigh to 1945 Professor of Classical Philology.

Become quickly known by the success of The Roman Revolution from 1939, Syme was in 1949 appointed to the Oxford Brasenose College, where he became professor of Ancient History successor of Hugh load and heritage of the venerable chair was as Camden (since 1622). For 21 years, he filled this position until his retirement in 1970 but remained scientifically active as Extraordinary Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, until his death. Symes closest disciple, Fergus Millar has held from 1984 to 2002 Symes former Chair as Camden Professor.

1959 Syme was knighted. From 1955 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. 1959/1960 Syme was appointed Sather Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Work

Syme wrote several standard works and wrote numerous articles, as well as several chapters for the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient History. His most famous work is The Roman Revolution ( " The Roman Revolution ", published on September 7, 1939), in which he retraced the path of the first Roman emperor Augustus. For Syme Augustus was a man of power -calculate who wore the old crumbling Republic to the grave to justify an autocracy under a seemingly republican facade - it was necessary to choose between freedom or stable government. This deliberate parallels to the rise of totalitarian systems (such as fascism or communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union) in Symes time come clearly to light.

For Syme, who commanded a rousing prose, the historian Tacitus both in terms of the style as well as the open and latent anti-monarchical criticism that runs through the work of this ancient historian ( see also senatorial historiography ) was decisive. It bluntly, this means: Syme wrote in a sense that settlement with the Principate of Augustus, Tacitus so could not write. In addition, in his Roman Revolution also the example of Gaius Asinius Pollio is tangible, who wrote a now lost work of history about this time and (as Syme ) its representation in the year 60 BC began. However, it was partially voiced criticism of colleagues who Syme lack of distance from his subject accused the usefulness of the term " revolution " was doubted. Nevertheless, the importance of the work in research is now generally accepted and will not be questioned. Not least because of the negative perception of Augustus was the factory in Germany, where Caesar and Augustus long time rather understood as a genius " leading personalities ", first rezipiert only slowly after 1945.

The focus of Symes scientific work was in Roman history from the end of the republic until the 4th century AD He worked in numerous books and essays with some important time for these historians, especially Tacitus, of whom he one to today wrote important standard work. In this work he emphasizes the important role they played the provincial Romans in Trajan Administration ( also Syme himself was a homo novus from the province, in his case of the British Empire ). Another focus of his research represented the very controversial Historia Augusta; He dedicated this late antique plant a total of three books and numerous articles that were published later collected. He also worked on the composition and evolution of the senatorial elite of the empire. He is considered one of the most important representatives of prosopography (although Arnaldo Momigliano criticized this approach in his review ), where he works much the Friedrich Munzer and Matthias Gelzers owed ​​and this " German method " increasingly brought in the English speaking advantage.

" As Mommsen and Heuss was also Ronald Syme is a mage who had the historic fabric appropriated entirely and his reign brought about him in the claim expressed to be able to see the history of general insights. [ ... ] On the other hand, Syme joined in the search for his Durchblick conceivable closely the interest and the com-passion of the three history -writing aristocrat Pollio, Sallust and Tacitus on. "

Major works

• The Roman Revolution. Oxford 1939 See the substantially revised and first complete edition of the German translation of Friedrich Wilhelm Eschweiler and Hans Georg Degen. ; with references to Syme, an afterword and an essay on his life and work: The Roman Revolution. Power struggles in ancient Rome. Edited by Christoph Selzer and Uwe Walter, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-608-94029-4.
• Tacitus. 2 vols, Oxford 1958.
• Sallust. Berkeley, 1964 ( German Darmstadt 1975).
• Ammianus and the Historia Augusta. Oxford 1968.
• Emperors and Biography. Oxford 1971.
• Roman Papers. Edited by AR Birley, 7 vols, Oxford 1979-91 ( important collection of essays Symes ).
• The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford 1986.