John Kenyon Davies, FBA, FSA (born 19 September 1937) is a British classical historian and retired academic. Between 1977 and 2003, he was Rathbone Professor of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Liverpool.
Davies was born in 1937 and brought up in Cardiff. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, and then went up to Wadham College, Oxford, graduating in 1959. He matriculated at Merton College, Oxford in 1960 as a Harmsworth Senior Scholar.[1] From 1961 to 1962, he studied in the United States, as a Fellow at the Center for Hellenic StudiesinWashington, D.C.[2] He completed his DPhil in 1966.[3] He was the Dyson Junior Research FellowatBalliol College, Oxford, from 1963 to 1965 and then Lecturer in Ancient History at the University of St Andrews until 1968, when he was elected to a fellowshipatOriel College, Oxford. In 1977, he moved to the University of Liverpool to take up the Rathbone Chair of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology. He retired in 2003, having been Pro-Vice-Chancellor between 1986 and 1990 and a Leverhulme Research Professor from 1995 to 2000.[3][4] Davies was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1985[4] and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1986.[3]
While in Washington in 1961 he met the Italian philologist Anna Morpurgo, and married her the following year. The marriage was dissolved in 1978.[5]