A scholar is formed by his or her teachers. I am an eternal student. When my capacity to learn from colleagues and students (especially from students) has gone, retirement will be overdue.

J. J. Nicholls, a modest man and an admirable teacher, introduced me to ancient history. He was learned in the history of the Roman constitution, and an appassionato of Cicero's De republica. My Oxford history tutors were G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, of New College (which I entered in 1961) and C. E. ‘Tom Brown’ Stevens of Magdalen, the former a passionate polemicist, the latter an outrageously eccentric genius. I was Fergus Millar's first graduate pupil (from 1963). He set a high standard and a fast pace. The fruit of a month's hard labour would come back to me the next day together with pages of hand-written addenda and corrigenda. The atmosphere was friendly and supportive. I watched Ronald Syme work magic on inscriptions copied from stone, turning them into living Romans. He passed on to me one of his honorary doctorates and much more. Peter Parsons was a witty guide to the society of Oxyrhynchus for a term. P. A. Brunt, Martin Frederiksen and Tony Honoré were willing and formidable critics of my early work. George Cawkwell, a benevolent and charismatic giant, was my host when I took up a Junior Research Fellowship at University College, and encouraged and watched over my first efforts at teaching undergraduates.