Anthony R. Birley

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Anthony Richard Birley (born October 8, 1937 in Chesterholm , Northumberland , † December 19, 2020 in Newcastle upon Tyne ) was a British ancient historian .

Live and act

The son of the British archaeologist Eric Birley attended Clifton College in Bristol (1950–1955) and studied at Magdalen College , Oxford (1956–1963). He completed his classical studies under Ronald Syme in Oxford with the dissertation The Roman High Command from the death of Hadrian to the death of Caracalla with particular attention to the Danubian Wars of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus . From 1960 to 1962 he was a Craven Fellow at Oxford. From 1963 to 1965 he was a Fellow at Birmingham University , and from 1965 to 1974 Lecturer and Reader in Ancient History at theUniversity of Leeds . As a professor he taught at the universities of Manchester (1974 to 1990) and Düsseldorf (1990 to 2002).

His interests were prosopography and Roman biography . He presented important biographical works on the Roman emperors Hadrian , Marcus Aurelius and Septimius Severus . In 2005 he published a prosopography on the civil and military administration of the Roman province of Britain. He was also active as an excavator and also dealt intensively with the Historia Augusta , a late antique and very controversial collection of biographies. Birley has been a full member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences since 1994 and a corresponding member since 2002 (class for humanities), a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (since 1969) and a member of the German Archaeological Institute (since 1992). Most recently he was an Honorary Professor at Durham University . He died of lung cancer in late 2020 after a brief illness .

Fonts (selection)

  • The Roman Government of Britain. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2005, ISBN 0-19-925237-8 (new version of the "Fasti of Roman Britain" from 1981).
  • Hadrian. The restless emperor. Routledge, London et al. 1997, ISBN 0-415-16544-X .
  • The Fasti of Roman Britain. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1981, ISBN 0-19-814821-6 .
  • The people of Roman Britain. Batsford, London 1979, ISBN 0-7134-0580-5 .
  • Septimius Severus. The African emperor. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London 1971, ISBN 0-413-26900-0 .
  • Marcus Aurelius. Little, Brown, Boston MA et al. 1966.

literature

  • Konrad Vössing (Ed.): Biography and Prosopography. International Colloquium on the occasion of Anthony R. Birley's 65th birthday. September 28, 2002, Mickeln Castle, Düsseldorf (= Historia . Individual writings. H. 178). Steiner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-515-08538-6 .
  • Hans M. Schellenberg, Vera E. Hirschmann, Andreas Krieckhaus (Eds.): A Roman Miscellany. Essays in Honor of Anthony R. Birley on his Seventieth Birthday (= Akanthina. Monograph Series. Vol. 3). Foundation for the Development of Gdańsk University, Gdańsk 2008, ISBN 978-83-7531-146-4 .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ See the review by Michael Zahrnt in: Historische Zeitschrift 271 (2000), pp. 718–720.
  2. ↑ See the reviews of Mark Humphries in: Classics Ireland 9 (2002), pp. 102-104; Patricia A. Clark in: The International History Review 12 (1990), pp. 127-129; Zeev Rubin in: The Journal of Roman Studies 64, 1974, pp. 231-233.
  3. ↑ Jorit Wintjes in: H-Soz-Kult , December 14, 2009, ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Birley, Anthony R.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Birley, Anthony Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British ancient historian
DATE OF BIRTH October 8, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Chesterholm
DATE OF DEATH 19th December 2020
Place of death Newcastle upon Tyne