Arnold Hugh Martin JonesFBA (9 March 1904 – 9 April 1970),[1] known also asA. H. M. Jones orHugo Jones,[2] was a 20th-century British historian ofclassical antiquity, particularly of the laterRoman Empire.
Jones's book,The Later Roman Empire, 284–602 (1964), is a narrative history of late Rome and earlyByzantium, beginning with the reign of the RomantetrarchDiocletian and ending with that of the Byzantine emperorMaurice. A modern criticism of this work is its almost total reliance on literary and epigraphic primary sources, a methodology which mirrored Jones's ownhistoriographical training. Archaeological study of the period was in its infancy when Jones wrote, which limited the amount ofmaterial culture he could include in his research.[citation needed]
He published his first book,The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces, in 1937. In 1946, he was appointed to the chair of the Ancient History department atUniversity College, London. In 1951, he moved toCambridge University and assumed the same post there. He was elected aFellow of the British Academy in 1947.
Jones was reportedly an extremely fast reader with an encyclopedic memory. His disdain for "small talk" sometimes made him seem remote and cold to those who did not know him well, but he was warmly regarded by his students. He was sometimes criticized for not fully acknowledging the work of other scholars in his own footnotes, a habit he was aware of and apologized for in the preface to his first book.[citation needed]
Jones died of aheart attack in 1970 while travelling by boat toThessaloniki to give a series of lectures.[3] In 1972,John Crook published posthumously Jones' draft ofThe Criminal Courts of the Roman Republic and Principate.[4]
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Professor of Ancient History,University College, London 1946–1951 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Professor of Ancient HistoryCambridge University 1951–1970 | Succeeded by |
| Publications | |
|---|---|
| Projects | |
| Prosopographers | |
| Other | |
