John K. Davies (historian)


John Kenyon Davies, FBA, FSA is a British classical historian and retired academic. Between 1977 and 2003, he was Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool.

Career

Davies was born in 1937 and brought up in Cardiff. He was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, graduating in 1959 and then completing a DPhil there in 1966. From 1961 to 1962 he was a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. He was the Dyson Junior Research Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1963 to 1965 and then Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St Andrews until 1968, when he was elected to a fellowship at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1977, he moved to the University of Liverpool to take up the Rathbone Chair of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology. He retired in 2003, having been Pro-Vice-Chancellor between 1986 and 1990 and a Leverhulme Research Professor from 1995 to 2000. Davies was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1985 and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1986.

Publications

While in Washington in 1961 he met the Italian philologist Anna Morpurgo, and married her the following year. The marriage was dissolved in 1978.