Peter Astbury Brunt 1917–2005

Peter Astbury Brunt (1917–2005), a Fellow of the British Academy, served in the Ministry of Shipping (later War Transport), alongside his undergraduate contemporary and friend, Basil Dickinson. After his release from the Ministry, he took up at the beginning of 1946 a Senior Demyship at Magdalen College, to which he had been elected the previous autumn, and the Craven Fellowship that had been awarded to him in 1939, choosing as a topic for research the relations between governed and governors in the Roman Empire, and set off for the British School at Rome. It was Roman Stoicism that claimed more and more of Brunt's attention. He was happy to admit the influence on his thinking of Geoffrey de Ste Croix, despite the differences in their political views. One of the themes that occupied Brunt during the period from 1951 to 1968 was that of ancient slavery. During his seventeen years in the University of Oxford, he undertook major administrative tasks both for his college and for the university.