Oxford Classics on the Roman Frontier

This chapter focuses on the development of archaeology as a discipline in the United Kingdom, when a distinctive strand of Oxford Classics (‘Greats’) collided with the Roman frontier spanning northern England. In 1931, Oxford graduate Eric Birley (1906–95) took up a lectureship in the history and archaeology of Roman Britain at the University of Durham, a post combining undergraduate teaching with the leadership of excavation along Hadrian’s Wall. The impact of his 40-year tenure is explored. Birley’s educational background, academic personality and personal network ensured that the new post was effectively an Oxford ‘plant’. Birley was influenced by an approach to Roman Britain championed by R.G. Collingwood, his tutor at Oxford. Collingwood was the student of the epigrapher Francis Haverfield, Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford until 1919. In Haverfield’s view, Roman Britain ought to be studied as a province in Rome’s imperial project, part of an international scholarly effort to explore the materiality of the frontiers. Birley adhered to Haverfield’s vision, even though Collingwood lost faith in the project and in the primacy of the epigraphic evidence. The shortcomings of the Haverfield/Birley approach are discussed in the broader context of debates about Roman imperialism and the historiography of Roman Britain.