Elizabeth Rawson


Elizabeth Donata Rawson was a classical scholar known primarily for her work in the intellectual history of the Roman Republic and her biography of Cicero.

Early life

Elizabeth Rawson was the daughter of Graham Stanhope Rawson and Ivy Marion Enthoven, who married in 1930. The Rawsons were originally a Yorkshire family whose lineage can be traced back to around 1500, but Elizabeth's great-great-grandfather had settled in Kent in the early 19th century. The family lived at 8 Campden Hill Square, Kensington. Rawson grew up in an environment where classical music, theatre, and intellectual achievement were highly valued. Her father, described as "somewhat remote," earned a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Jena in Germany. Her mother, a Dutch Jew, gave assistance during the 1920s to political exiles and opponents of the Fascist regime in Italy, where she had pro-Fascist cousins. In her first book, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought, Rawson acknowledged the influence of her mother, "who in no way resembles a Spartan Mother, save in her dislike of unnecessary verbiage."

Career

Rawson was an early Fellow of New Hall, Cambridge and subsequently Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History, Corpus Christi College, Oxford. She had been a Rome Scholar 1957–59.
In 1988, Rawson was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. She died that same year in China after one term spent teaching at Nankai University, at the age of 54. She bequeathed her personal library to New Hall, where it is available in a reading area as the Rawson Collection.

Scholarship

Rawson's collected papers, published under the title Roman Culture and Society, explored the "workings of human politics and society, historical thinking at Rome, and literary and cultural criticism," dealing mainly with the themes of historiography and antiquarianism. The collection comprises 31 "substantial" articles written in a 20-year period, during which time she also published three major books and contributed to standard reference works in her field. "Held up by ill-health until 1968," wrote classical scholar T.P. Wiseman, "Elizabeth Rawson started writing late; but once she did start, she had a great deal to say about a great many different things."
In regard to her methodology, Rawson remarked that "a historical generalisation means nothing, is totally empty, without the concrete details from which it emerges and to which it lends significance." She was criticised as "hostile to 'ideas'," and preferred an empirical to a theoretical approach.
Wiseman had this assessment:

Works

Books

The following essays are listed as they were originally published, but appear also in the volume of collected papers.