About Ronald Syme
Sir Ronald Syme (11 March 1903 – 4 September 1989) was a New Zealand-born historian and classicist. 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. His great work was The Roman Revolution (1939), a masterly and controversial analysis of political life in the Roman Republic following the assassination of Julius Caesar, offering critical views about Octavian in particular that challenged widely accepted views in contemporary academia. == 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 District High School, where a teacher noticed his talent and interest in languages. 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 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 into Platonic prose, and the following year won the Prize again (for Verse) for a translation of part of William Morris's Sigurd the Volsung into Homeric hexameters.
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