Miriam Griffin, Who Put Nero in a New Light, Dies at 82

Miriam T. Griffin was born in New York City but found her career an ocean away and 2,000 years in the past.

Dr. Griffin, one of the world’s foremost classical scholars and the author of important books on Seneca, the Roman philosopher and statesman, and Nero, the infamous emperor, died on May 16 in Oxford, England. She was 82.

The cause was acute myeloid leukemia, her daughter Julia Griffin said.

Dr. Griffin taught at Somerville College, Oxford, for decades and was an emeritus fellow in ancient history there.

“Miriam Griffin was a very unusual combination of ancient historian and philosopher,” Kathleen M. Coleman, the James Loeb professor of the classics at Harvard University, said by email. “This enabled her to achieve profound new insight into the motivation of figures such as Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, millionaire and adviser to the emperor Nero.” ...