Ernst Badian

Who was Ernst Badian?

Ernst Badian was an Austrian-born classical scholar who served as a professor at Harvard University, USA, from 1971 to 1998.

Badian was one of the great historians of Greece and Rome of the 20th century. He was born in Vienna in 1925. In 1938, in view of the growing persecution of Jews in Austria and Germany, he moved with his parents to New Zealand. There he attended Canterbury University College, New Zealand, receiving a B.A. in 1945 and an M.A. the following year. He then went to University College, Oxford, studying under George Cawkwell and getting a B.A. in 1950, an M.A. in 1954, and D. Phil. in 1956. In addition, he took a Litt. D. from New Zealand's Victoria University of Wellington in 1962.

After teaching in the universities of Sheffield, Durham, and Leeds in Britain, and at the State University of New York, Buffalo, he was appointed to Harvard’s Department of History in 1971, and was cross-appointed to the Department of the Classics in 1973. He became John Moors Cabot Professor of History Emeritus in 1998.

Badian was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974.