Richard Saller

Richard Saller is currently the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences and the Kleinheinz Family Professor of European Studies at Stanford University. He came to this position from that of Provost of the University of Chicago (2002-2006), having served as Dean of the Social Sciences Division at Chicago for eight years (1994-2001). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.

His research has concentrated on Roman social and economic history, in particular patronage relations, the family and the imperial economy. He uses literary, legal and epigraphic materials to investigate issues of social hierarchy, gender distinctions and economic production with the aid of current social science theory.  His BA’s in History and Greek were earned at the University of Illinois (1974) and his doctorate at the University of Cambridge (1978).

Publications include: Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982) Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1994; paperback 1997) P.D.A. Garnsey and R.P. Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture (London, Duckworth; Berkeley, Ca., University of California Press, 1987), translated into French, Italian, German, Greek, and Spanish Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Greco-Roman Antiquity (2007).