Oliver Lyne

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Richard Oliver Allen Marcus Lyne (21 December 1944 – 17 March 2005), also known as R.O.A.M. Lyne or Oliver Lyne, was a British classicist who specialised in Latin poetry. Born in Peterborough, he studied at Highgate School and St John’s College, Cambridge, earning a first-class BA in 1966 and a PhD in 1970 under F. R. D. Goodyear. He held fellowships at Fitzwilliam and Churchill Colleges before moving to Oxford in 1971 as a Fellow of Balliol College, later becoming Professor of Classical Languages and Literature in 1999.

Lyne was associated with the Harvard School of thought that views Virgil’s Aeneid as containing a private voice that undermines the propaganda of imperial Rome. His 1987 book Further Voices in Virgil’s Aeneid expanded on this idea, arguing that Virgil conveys provocative material, juxtaposition, imagery, ambiguity, and intertextual allusion to question imperial ideology.

He died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 17 March 2005 at his holiday home in Marche, Italy, aged 60. He had married Linda (née Rees) in 1969, and they had two children, Raphael (born 1971) and Rosy (born 1973). His older brother is film director Adrian Lyne. In 2007, an edited volume titled R. O. A. M. Lyne: Collected Papers on Latin Poetry was published in his memory.