John Davie

John Davie is a classicist, translator and author, now living in South Devon. After graduating with First Class Honours from Glasgow University he spent three years at Balliol College as a Snell Exhibitioner and graduated as Bachelor of Letters with a thesis on Greek tragedy (also winning a Blue at golf). He taught at Harrow before becoming Head of Classics at St Paul’s School in London, and for the last 15 years of his career he taught Classics to undergraduates at various Oxford colleges, including Trinity, where he was awarded a lectureship. He has written widely on classical literature and its influence on later authors, especially Shakespeare. He has translated the 19 surviving plays of Euripides for Penguin Classics and various works of Seneca, Horace and Cicero for Oxford World’s Classics. A Visiting Lecturer for the Hellenic and Roman Societies, he has a special interest in the art of the ancient Greeks and the Italian Renaissance. Most recently he has published for Bloomsbury ‘Et Tu, Brute?’, a light-hearted look at Roman life, co-authored with Harry Mount, (editor of the Oldie magazine), and, due out in November 2026, ‘Greek To Us’, explaining why the ancient Greeks matter today.