Erich Stephen Gruen ( , ; born May 7, 1935) is an American

classicist Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

and

ancient historian Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

. He was the Gladys Rehard Wood

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and Classics at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, where he taught full-time from 1966 until 2008. He served as president of the American Philological Association in 1992.

Biography

Born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, he received BAs from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...

, and the PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1964. Gruen was a varsity lightweight rower at Columbia and valedictorian of his 550-man graduating class. From 1957 to 1960, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford. His earlier work focussed on the later

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Ki ...

, and culminated in ''

The Last Generation of the Roman Republic ''The Last Generation of the Roman Republic'' (1974) is a scholarly work by Erich S. Gruen on the end of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. The central argument of the work is that the Late Roman Republic can be characterised by the stre ...

'', a work often cited as a response to

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 ...

's ''

The Roman Revolution ''The Roman Revolution'' (1939) is a scholarly study of the final years of the ancient Roman Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire by Caesar Augustus. The book was the work of Sir Ronald Syme (1903–1989), a noted Tacitean scholar, and w ...

''. Gruen's argument is that the Republic was not in decay, and so not necessarily in need of "rescue" by Caesar Augustus and the institutions of the Empire. He later worked on the

Hellenistic In Classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in ...

period and on

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

in the classical world. Gruen taught what was purportedly his final undergraduate lecture course, The

World, in the Fall of 2006. Despite his retirement from full-time teaching, he continues to oversee doctoral dissertations and is widely sought for visiting professorships. In addition to U.C. Berkeley, Gruen has taught at Harvard University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Cornell University. He says that his most inspirational teaching experience, however, was a brief stint instructing prisoners at San Quentin State Prison in the late 2000s. At Berkeley, his students have included

Kenneth Sacks Kenneth Sacks is an American historian and classicist, noted for his work on Ralph Waldo Emerson. Currently he serves as Professor of History and Classics at Brown University, where he was previously Dean of the College. A graduate of the Universi ...

. In 1969–70 and 1989–90, Gruen was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He received the

Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian ...

in 1998.

Books

*''Roman Politics and the Criminal Courts, 149-78 BC'' (Cambridge MA, 1968) *''The Image of Rome'' (ed.) (Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1969) *''Imperialism in the Roman Republic'' (ed.) (NY, 1970) *''The Roman Republic'' (Washington DC, 1972) *''

'' (Berkeley, 1974; pb edition 1995) *''The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome'', 2 vols. (Berkeley, 1984; pb 1986) *''Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy'' (Leiden, 1990; pb 1996)) *''Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome'' (Ithaca, 1992; pb 1994) *''Images and Ideologies: Self-Definition in the Hellenistic World'' (co-ed.) (Berkeley, 1993) *''Hellenistic Constructs: Essays in Culture, History, and Historiography'' (co-ed.) (Berkeley, 1997) *''Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition'' (Berkeley, 1998) *''Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans'' (Cambridge MA, 2002) (Reviews
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2002.10.33
*''Rethinking the Other in Antiquity'' (Princeton, 2010)

References

External links

Gruen's Home page
at the UCB History Department web site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruen, Erich 1935 births Living people Writers from Vienna Austrian emigrants to the United States 21st-century American historians American male non-fiction writers American classical scholars Scholars of Roman history American Rhodes Scholars Columbia College (New York) alumni Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Harvard University alumni Classical scholars of Harvard University Classical scholars of the University of California, Berkeley Recipients of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art Prosopographers of ancient Rome Fellows of Merton College, Oxford Historians from California 21st-century American male writers