John R. Melville-Jones, the celebrated scholar of numismatics and Byzantine history, passed away on January 28th 2026 at the age of 92.
He was born in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, and educated at Clifton College (Bristol) and Cambridge University (Emmanuel). He began his study of Classics with Latin aged 8 and Greek aged 10. His schooling was focused almost exclusively on these subjects apart from some mathematics, though he did take the English higher certificate a second time to study English and Ancient History before going to Cambridge and gaining his BA (1956). He later broadened his study with a Postgraduate Diploma (with distinction) in Classical Archaeology at Cambridge in 1961; he was able to make extensive use of these studies in his teaching. He came to Australia in 1957 at age 24, travelling on the SS Himalaya, to take up a junior lectureship in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Western Australia. He gained his PhD at UWA in 1964. He remained at UWA for the next 68 years retiring in 2012 at age 79 as Winthrop Professor in Classics and Ancient History but continuing as Emeritus Professor and working on campus daily into his 90s. He continued to be closely involved with all nearly all aspects of university life in Perth and always stressed that at no stage did he ever really retire.
During the 1960s the department of Classics and Ancient History at UWA under the leadership of Mervyn Austin expanded dramatically with the arrival of such accomplished scholars as Paul Weaver, Graham Clark, John Jory, and Brian Bosworth. John’s adaptability and all-round skills allowed him to teach across language units – including units on Greek Comedy and Tragedy, as well as lecture on material culture where his course ‘Classical Art and Architecture’ contained a healthy dose of ancient coinage. And not everything was confined to the classroom. His stage translation of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata was used in a performance by department students in 1996 at the university’s Dolphin Theatre under the direction of his colleague Judith Maitland who reported that Johns’s lyrics set to music in choral passages were ‘rhythmic, ingenious, and delightful’.
Perth provided the ideal base for his involvement in Australian societies with his interests (the value of having contributing members to the life of these organizations cannot be underestimated). He served for seven years as the third elected President of the Australian (now Australasian) Society for Byzantine Studies (1995 to 2003). He was a member of the Numismatic Association of Australia, and won its Ray Jewell Silver medal for services to numismatics in 2011; the NAA honoured his contributions to the field in 2020 with a special volume of its journal on the teaching of numismatics. He was also involved with international research bodies and won numerous fellowships. He was a member of the Royal Numismatic Society; Nuffield Travelling Fellow 1969-70; Fulbright Senior Scholar 1974; Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1974 (Visitor 1984, 1990); Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, Senior Visiting Scholar 2002; and University of Cincinnati, Margo Tytus Visiting Scholar 2003.
John involved himself with the Greek community in Perth. He was a vocal and passionate advocate for Greek claims in regard to the name and identity of Macedonia that were later resolved with the Prespa Agreement in 2018 and the founding of the Republic of North Macedonia. This sometimes got him into hot water. In 2011 he produced a pamphlet entitled ‘The Myth of Modern Macedonia’, a work he planned to expand, he explained with characteristic humour, ‘as I feel as if the spirits of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great are directing my efforts’ (interview with the newspaper Neos Kosmos, 4 July 2012). Despite the evident friction, in an address at John’s funeral the Greek consul in Perth, Mrs Eleni Georgopoulou, acknowledged The Prespa Agreement as a historic moment for South-Eastern Europe and said that it was ‘thoughtful academics’, ‘like Professor Melville-Jones, who foster informed dialogue and mutual understanding and help shape the understanding that makes reconciliation possible’.
Given the concentration on Classical literature and language in his training it was perhaps unexpected that John’s research came to embrace two quite different and contrasting areas, numismatics and Byzantine Greek. He was attracted to Byzantine Greek, which tends to be avoided by Classicists, after being puzzled by the absence of accounts in English of so significant an event as the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. He was similarly puzzled by the absence of material on Western, particularly Venetian, involvement in the Byzantine empire. The explanation lies largely in the awkward languages of the major sources, Byzantine Greek and Venetian dialectal Italian. So he set about rectifying this gap with English translations compiled over decades of a remarkable number of works in both Byzantine Greek and Venetian Italian, accompanied by background commentaries often involving considerable meticulous research. In 1969 he published his translation of arguably the most important of these, the physician Nicolo Barbaro’s Diary of the Siege of Constantinople (New York), and followed with The Siege of Constantinople: Seven Contemporary Accounts (Amsterdam 1972). Most remarkably, he led a largely Italian team that between 1999 and 2025 edited and translated with accompanying commentary five volumes of the Morosini Codex. A single manuscript, this is the largest surviving document from 15th-century Venice, chronicling Venetian history up to 1434. The separate volumes are small because of the peculiarities of the sole surviving manuscript. It contains unknown ligatures and symbols, unexpected word-grouping, dialect vocabulary and spelling and so on, all posing problems and making editing a learning experience for the editors. They hoped that by editing just small sections at a time they may profit in the later volumes from their errors and experience. To these John added a further volume of documents linking Venice to Thessaloniki, Venice and Thessalonica, 1423–1430: The Venetian Documents (Padua 2002), with a balancing Venice and Thessalonica, 1423–1430: The Greek Accounts (also Padua 2002). Earlier he had already translated and published a further volume on the western presence in Thessaloniki, that of Eustathios of Thessaloniki, The Capture of Thessaloniki (Canberra 1988). This is a highly important eye-witness account of the Norman capture of Byzantium’s second most important city in 1185, again written in difficult Greek. In addition he arranged for his student, Andrew Stone, to translate and publish Eustathios of Thessaloniki, Secular Orations 1167/8 to 1179 (Brisbane 2013).
The translation of the remarkable range of texts that John dealt with have certainly opened up a more detailed awareness of Italian, especially Venetian, involvement in the Byzantine world for those historians who lack a sufficiently deep knowledge of the necessary languages to feel comfortable with the Venetian and Byzantine Greek sources. What marks John’s Byzantine contributions (as well as those in numismatics) is that they are all directed at being useful to others who may simply lack the language or numismatic skills, though John would never have acknowledged this. It is this urge to be helpful to others by filling in awkward gaps that lay behind his choice of research areas where he could exploit his special skills.
When John, at the age of 27, returned to Cambridge in 1961, his studies in classical archaeology included a unit with the Assistant Keeper of Coins and Medals at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Graham Pollard. Pollard, he later noted, ‘infected me with his enthusiasm for the subject’. John’s work on ancient history from the start features coinage; the very earliest of his publications, ‘Vespasian Junior’, appeared in the Numismatic Chronicle for 1966. He was especially interested in the relationship between the literary evidence for the making and use of coins and then the coins themselves. Among his earliest works in this direction are two volumes for which he is best known today to a general audience interested in ancient coins: A Dictionary of Ancient Greek Coins (1986) and A Dictionary of Ancient Roman Coins (1990). He seems to be preparing for these two volumes by compiling firstly the Analytical index to the Journal international d’archéologie numismatique. (1967) and then A Numismatic Index to the “Journal of Hellenic Studies”, 1880-1969 (1971). These publications reveal the emergence of an encyclopaedic knowledge of ancient numismatics and its literature, ancient and modern. These volumes also reflect his self-professed aim to become a teacher who would help ‘collectors or students of ancient coinage to navigate the terminology and the ancient written sources when they exist’.
The relationship between literary evidence and the coins themselves in the study of ancient numismatics defines his two most important numismatics books (both published by Spinks London). Testimonia Numaria: Greek and Latin Texts Concerning Ancient Greek Coinage, Volume I, 1993, was described by a reviewer in NC 1994 as ‘a prodigious publication by any standards’. The commentary (and invaluable index together with addenda) in Vol. II was not published until 2007. Testimonia Numaria Romana: Greek and Latin text concerning Roman coinage, followed in 2023 (available in printed form, but thankfully also as a downloadable PDF). The reviewer in Plekos 2025 argued that it was an ‘essential reference work in every library that deals with studies related to history, archaeology, law, economy and coinage’.
These two related studies of Testimonia Numaria bring together the original texts, a translation of each and then a commentary. There are 927 entries in the Greek volume, taken from ancient authors and inscriptions. The Roman volume has 1052 entries. The commentary reveals an extraordinary knowledge of the texts (and their many difficulties) together with a remarkably broad grasp of the numismatic literature and debates. Many examples could be given. Entry 267 from the book on Greek coinage 267 (TN, p. 198-203), for example, contains a list made up of passages in eight inscriptions detailing the sums of money in perhaps as many as 85 jars, a fixed deposit stored in the temple of Apollo on Delos after 166 BC. Getting hold of the original Inscriptions de Délos publication (F. Durrbach et al. eds. 1926-1950) is not easy. In addition to making the texts accessible he provided five pages of commentary that demonstrate his command of epigraphy as well as numismatics.
In recognition of his achievements John was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities 1994. He was awarded the Aristotle Prize by the Greek Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace for his philhellenism (2014), and an honorary Doctor of Letters from Macquarie University in 2016. In 2021 he appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘for significant service to tertiary education in Greek, Roman and Byzantine history, and to numismatics’.
John was passionate about supporting the study of ancient numismatics in Australia. He was a generous benefactor of the Australian Centre for Ancient Numismatic Studies (ACANS) at Macquarie University. He donated to the Centre numerous long runs of journals and a good number of his most important books (including a beautifully leatherbound copy of Eckhel and the very rare works of Svoronos) from an impressive personal numismatic library. He also sent along his personal collection of copies and Paduans (Renaissance imitations of ancient coins) that had once featured in his own university lectures on coins. His daughter Katharine and her family have most generously endowed an essay prize at Macquarie University in John’s name. John is survived by his two daughters, Elizabeth and Katharine and their children. He will be missed.
Associate Professor Roger Scott FAHA
Honorary, University of Melbourne
Associate Professor Kenneth Sheedy FAHA
Honorary, Macquarie University
