RashadWaltman14 at 10:58, 15 May 2026

2026-05-15T10:58:53Z

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{{Short description|British classical scholar (1938 – 2017)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}}
{{More citations needed|date=July 2019}}
{{Infobox academic
| honorific_prefix = 
| name = Alan Cameron
| honorific_suffix =
| image = Alan Cameron, March 2013 (cropped).jpg
| image_upright =
| alt =
| caption = Cameron in 2013
| birth_name = Alan Douglas Edward Cameron
| birth_date = {{birth date|df=y|1938|3|13}}
| birth_place = [[Windsor, Berkshire]], England
| death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|2017|7|31|1938|3|13}}
| death_place = New York, US
| death_cause =
| citizenship = British <br>U.S.
| spouse = Dame [[Averil Cameron]] (married 1962–1980)<br>Carla Asher (married 1998) <ref>{{cite web |url=http://classics.columbia.edu/news/2017/8/3/professor-alan-cameron-1938-2017 | title=Professor Alan Cameron (1938-2017) }}</ref>
| partner =
| children =
| website =
| discipline = [[Classics]]
| sub_discipline = {{hlist|[[Philology]]|[[Latin]]|[[Latin literature]]|[[Roman poetry]]|[[Ancient Greek literature]]|[[Late antiquity]]}}
| workplaces = {{plain list|
* [[University of Glasgow]]
* [[Bedford College, London]]
* [[King's College London]]
* [[Columbia University]] }}
| doctoral_students = 
| notable_students = 
| main_interests =
| notable_works =
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}}

'''Alan Douglas Edward Cameron''', {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FBA}} (13 March 1938 – 31 July 2017) was a British classicist and academic. He was Charles Anthon Professor Emeritus of the Latin Language and Literature at [[Columbia University]], New York. He was one of the leading scholars of the literature and history of the later Roman world and at the same time a wide-ranging classical philologist whose work encompassed above all the Greek and Latin poetic tradition from Hellenistic to Byzantine times but also aspects of late antique art.

==Life and career==
Cameron was educated at [[St. Paul's School, London]] (1951–1956). He went on to [[New College, Oxford]], earning a first class in [[Honour Moderations]] (1959) and ''[[Literae Humaniores]]'' (1961). He was married, from 1962 to 1980, to [[Averil Cameron]], with whom he had a son and a daughter. In 1998 he married Carla Asher, who survives him.

He began his academic career as a lecturer at the [[University of Glasgow]] (1961). He then became a Lecturer and then a Reader in Latin at [[Bedford College, London]] (1964–1972). From 1972 to 1977 he held the Chair of Latin at [[King's College London]]. He went to [[Columbia University]] as Charles Anthon Professor in 1977.

Cameron was elected a [[Fellow of the British Academy]] (FBA) in 1975. He became a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1978 and a Fellow of the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1992. In March 1997 he was awarded the [[American Philological Association]]'s Goodwin Award. In 2005, he received Columbia University's Lionel Trilling Award.

In 2013, he was awarded the [[Kenyon Medal]] for Classical Studies and Archaeology of the [[British Academy]]. The award dedication read as follows:
{{blockquote|Alan Cameron has produced a major series of books on various aspects of the later Graeco-Roman world, from early Hellenistic times to the late Empire. He has a remarkable flair for synthesising literary with social and political history, at the same time clarifying the nature and relationships of the sources, and he regularly subjects long-accepted doctrines to examination and challenge. For students of Hellenistic poetry his Callimachus and His Critics (1995) has become a central point of reference, while his work on the Palatine Anthology, The Greek Anthology: From Meleager to Planudes (1993) threw much new light on the transmission of that great composite collection of epigrams. Other major works have included Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius (1970), Greek Mythography in the Roman World (2004), and most recently The Last Pagans of Rome (2011).}}

He also published about 200 scholarly articles on a wide range of subjects related to the ancient world.

Cameron died in New York on 31 July 2017, at the age of 79.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/classics/newsrecords/2017/Professor-Alan-Cameron-1938-2017.aspx|title=Professor Alan Cameron, 1938-2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190105015025/https://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/classics/newsrecords/2017/Professor-Alan-Cameron-1938-2017.aspx|archive-date=2019-01-05}}</ref>

==Selected works==
Cameron's books include:
* ''Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius'' (1970) {{ISBN|9780198143512}}
* ''Porphyrius the Charioteer'' (1973) {{ISBN|9780198148050}}
* ''Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium'' (1976) {{ISBN|9780198148043}}
* ''Barbarians and Politics at the Court of Arcadius'' (May 1992) (with Jacqueline Long and Lee Sherry)
* ''The Greek Anthology: From Meleager to Planudes'' (1993) {{ISBN|9780198140238}}
* ''Callimachus and his Critics'' (1995) {{ISBN|9780691043678}}
* ''Greek Mythography in the Roman World'' (2004) {{ISBN|9780195171211}}
**reviewed by T P Wiseman in the ''[[Times Literary Supplement]]'', 13 May 2005 page 29
* ''The Last Pagans of Rome'' (2011) {{ISBN|9780199959709}}
**reviewed by Peter Brown in the ''[[New York Review of Books]]'', 7 April 2011
* ''Wandering Poets and Other Essays in Late Antique Poetry and Philosophy'' (2015) {{ISBN|9780190268947}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cameron, Alan}}
[[Category:1938 births]]
[[Category:2017 deaths]]
[[Category:British classical scholars]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
[[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]]
[[Category:British Byzantinists]]
[[Category:Classical scholars of Columbia University]]
[[Category:Classical philologists]]
[[Category:Scholars of Byzantine history]]
[[Category:Scholars of Byzantine literature]]
[[Category:British literary scholars]]
[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]

Alan Cameron classicist - Revision history

RashadWaltman14 at 10:58, 15 May 2026