Samuel Dill

Born in Hillsborough, County Down, on 26 March 1844, Samuel Dill was an Irish-born classical scholar, historian, and educationalist. He studied at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and Queen's College Belfast before continuing at Oxford, and he went on to build a distinguished academic career in Britain and Ireland.

Dill taught classics and held senior education posts, including work in Manchester and later a long association with Queen's College Belfast and Queen's University Belfast. He became especially known for his studies of the Roman world, writing influential books on Roman society in the last century of the Western Empire and during the age of Nero to Marcus Aurelius.

What still makes his work appealing is the way he looked beyond emperors and battles to everyday life, religion, morals, and social change. He was knighted in 1909, and he died in Belfast on 26 May 1924.