Peter Brunt Obituary: Demolished Old Views Of The Roman Republic's Politics
Peter Brunt, who died on November 5 aged 88, was an important Roman historian and Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford from 1970 to 1982.
His contributions to Roman history were distinguished by very wide knowledge, logical clarity, a highly developed critical sense, and above all an intellectual integrity which found no place for display. Instead, as he himself would say, he was a penetrating critic who would not accept claims that the evidence supported claims which it did not.
Peter Astbury Blunt was born on June 23 1917, the son of a Methodist minister, the Rev Samuel Brunt, and of Gladys Eileen Brunt. His mother, whom his friends remember as a warm, cultivated and lively person, was important to him throughout his career, and died only after his retirement. He was educated at Ipswich School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a First in Mods in 1937, and in Greats two years later. Both the nature of these undergraduate courses and the dates were highly relevant to his intellectual development and academic record. Mods was devoted to reading the works of the Classical canon, and Greats to a combination of Ancient History, studied through the major narrative writers, and Philosophy, in which Plato and Aristotle played a large part. His eventual predecessor in the Camden Chair, Ronald Syme, who had been Examiner in 1939, was to recall later that PA Brunt's translations had been of exceptional quality.
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But his major impact, even today not yet fully absorbed or sufficiently acknowledged, was in Roman history. A number of major studies, later collected in Roman Imperial Themes (1990), analysed the working of the Empire.
His greatest originality lay in the Republic. At Oriel he had written two fundamental works, of contrasting types, both published in 1971: his massive Italian Manpower, and a slim paperback, Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic, whose title implicitly asserted that the prevailing view of Republican politics, as a mere struggle for pre-eminence between individuals, families or "factions'', simply did not correspond to the evidence. While personal ambition was of course important in Roman society, political strife related to major social and constitutional issues.
This theme, or set of themes, was more fully argued in the papers, whether new or re-printed, collected in perhaps his most important work, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (1988).
His contributions to Roman history were distinguished by very wide knowledge, logical clarity, a highly developed critical sense, and above all an intellectual integrity which found no place for display. Instead, as he himself would say, he was a penetrating critic who would not accept claims that the evidence supported claims which it did not.
Peter Astbury Blunt was born on June 23 1917, the son of a Methodist minister, the Rev Samuel Brunt, and of Gladys Eileen Brunt. His mother, whom his friends remember as a warm, cultivated and lively person, was important to him throughout his career, and died only after his retirement. He was educated at Ipswich School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a First in Mods in 1937, and in Greats two years later. Both the nature of these undergraduate courses and the dates were highly relevant to his intellectual development and academic record. Mods was devoted to reading the works of the Classical canon, and Greats to a combination of Ancient History, studied through the major narrative writers, and Philosophy, in which Plato and Aristotle played a large part. His eventual predecessor in the Camden Chair, Ronald Syme, who had been Examiner in 1939, was to recall later that PA Brunt's translations had been of exceptional quality.
...
But his major impact, even today not yet fully absorbed or sufficiently acknowledged, was in Roman history. A number of major studies, later collected in Roman Imperial Themes (1990), analysed the working of the Empire.
His greatest originality lay in the Republic. At Oriel he had written two fundamental works, of contrasting types, both published in 1971: his massive Italian Manpower, and a slim paperback, Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic, whose title implicitly asserted that the prevailing view of Republican politics, as a mere struggle for pre-eminence between individuals, families or "factions'', simply did not correspond to the evidence. While personal ambition was of course important in Roman society, political strife related to major social and constitutional issues.
This theme, or set of themes, was more fully argued in the papers, whether new or re-printed, collected in perhaps his most important work, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (1988).