Simon Price (classicist)

Simon Rowland Francis Price (27 September 1954 – 14 June 2011) was an English classical scholar, specialising in the imperial cult of ancient Rome. His father, Hetley Price, was a priest at Manchester Cathedral, and Simon was educated at the city's Manchester Grammar School. He subsequently read literae humaniores (classics) at The Queen's College, Oxford, undertook postgraduate study at Oxford and at University College London, then moved briefly to Christ's College, Cambridge before returning to Oxford for a position at Lady Margaret Hall, where he spent the entire remainder of his career.

Price's academic works included Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor, which argued for a decentralised view of the imperial cult as variable between different cities and largely led by local aristocrats. His other academic work included studies in comparative literature, Greek agriculture, and early Christianity, as well as a collaboration with his wife, Lucia Nixon, in an archaeological survey of the Sfakia region of Crete. He took early retirement in 2008, following a diagnosis of cancer, and died in 2011.