Peter J. Parsons

Peter John Parsons, (24 September 1936 – 16 November 2022) was a British classicist and academic specialising in papyrology. He was Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford from 1989 to 2003.

Early life and education Parsons was born on 24 September 1936 in Surbiton, Surrey, England, to Robert John Parsons and Ethel Ada (née Frary). From 1954 to 1958, he studied classics at Christ Church, Oxford, where his tutors included John Gould, David Malcolm Lewis and J. Gwyn Griffiths. His position at Christ Church was formalised in 1964 when he was made a research student (i.e. a research fellow, "student" being the name of fellows at the college). Parsons supported the Joint Association of Classical Teachers Greek summer school at Bryanston in Dorset, acting as a tutor on a number of occasions, and he was also Director of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project. she had had a diagnosis of cancer before they married and she died the same year. Barbara was the widow of Colin William MacLeod (1943–1981), a classical scholar at Christ Church, Oxford.

On 16 November 2022, Parsons died at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, at the age of 86. His funeral was held at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on 2 December 2022.

Honours In 1977, Parsons was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA). In 2019, Parsons was awarded the Kenyon Medal by the British Academy.

A conference was held in Oxford in September 2006 to celebrate his 70th birthday. An associated Festschrift was published in 2011, titled Culture in pieces: essays on ancient texts in honour of Peter Parsons, and edited by Dirk Obbink and Richard Rutherford.

Selected works