Joyce Reynolds received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge on 20 June 2018. (Photo: Tempest Photography)
When, just over a quarter of a century ago, this journal honoured Joyce Reynolds on her seventy-fifth birthday (JRS 83 (1993), xi–xii), not only for her services to the Roman Society, but also for her commitment to her University and College, and to her colleagues, pupils and numerous friends in this country and overseas, it wished her, in Charlotte Roueché’s words, many further productive years. That wish has been amply fulfilled. The intervening period has been marked by superb ongoing work on the epigraphy of Aphrodisias, Cyrenaica and more recently Pompeii, to mention only the highlights; and all that work has been characterised by the same outstanding strengths as before, an unrelenting commitment to the highest standards, along with the greatest generosity of spirit towards the work of others.
The outstanding books of the earlier period, Aphrodisias and Rome and Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, the latter written with Charlotte Roueché, have been followed by a continuing commitment to the epigraphy of the site, handing over to Angelos Chaniotis only a few years ago. Collaboration also, as manifested in Aphrodisias in Late Antiquity, has always been central to Joyce's belief and practice, and has given enormous benefit and pleasure to those fortunate enough to have enjoyed it. This urge to collaborate is currently manifested in the novel experience of helping to create an online version of the inscriptions of Cyrenaica — and in this connection we must not forget what she has done for a sister society, that for Libyan Studies; she is also a founding member and loyal supporter of the British Epigraphy Society; and her series of Epigraphic Saturdays in Cambridge is among the cherished memories of epigraphists the world over; the belief in collaboration appears again in a firm commitment to helping the final stages of the publication of the British excavations of the Insula of the Menander at Pompeii through to completion. Dealing with this material calls into play another of Joyce's great qualities, tact, necessary in dealing with a myriad of contributors to the project, honed by a lifetime of working under the aegis of not always easy to deal with antiquities authorities.
It might be unfashionable to say that Joyce was never driven by fashions in her epigraphic work. Rather than work on a theme that might allow her to avoid unpalatable texts, she was always firmly of the view that an epigraphist must deal with the whole of a body of material, from a site, a region, as in The Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania, or indeed a whole country. But the collaborative nature of much of Joyce's work, already touched on, also points towards another dimension of her scholarship, namely its international character. It is an expression of her outlook on life that she should have worked in the field in Libya and Turkey, neither of them easy countries, least of all in the days when Joyce travelled to work there, and made many firm friendships among local archaeologists. The wisdom of someone who has seen the consequences of two world wars and lived through the second no doubt helps to explain the strength of those friendships, and is surely a role model to us all.
In my own case, four memories of collaboration stand out that illustrate Joyce's epigraphic knack and zeal as well as her great humanity. First, when we were checking a few doubtful letters in the Customs Law of Asia from Ephesus, it was a piece of joyful teamwork combining Joyce's corrections of my readings (taken of the top lines of the stone from a rather insecure platform provided by the museum), using merely her phenomenal eyesight to scrutinise the letters in question from the ground. Next, one remembers her combination of quiet pleasure at moments of indulgence with calm acceptance of privation in the service of epigraphy: in the glory days of Aphrodisias, a waiter would appear mid-morning as if miraculously across the dusty fields, carrying iced tea, which Joyce accepted as one would morning coffee in a Cambridge college; whereas at Aezani, during Ramadan, the local tea-house in contrast refused any sustenance whatsoever, apart from water, to lighten work on the copy there of the Prices Edict, despite the burning sun; Joyce's readiness to politely accept figs from the cow-dung encrusted hands of a local farmer at Aphrodisias was however less driven by nutritional needs than by the hope that he would lead us to as yet undiscovered inscriptions in the village. Third, one remembers the fund of stories of travels in Turkey in an earlier age, including meeting Louis Robert in the field, when he brought out a hip flask of raki, remarking that it was a great comfort, but very conspicuously not offering to share it with Joyce! Finally, again at Aezani, my proposed readings of this or that entry in Diocletian's Prices Edict, often the result of wish fulfilment, were greeted with, ‘Michael, are you sure?’ and there then emerged from the following discussion a reading that could be sustained: it is a fitting tribute to Joyce's scholarship that the final edition of that text is committed to the press as Joyce is enjoying the start of her second century!
Joyce, long may you continue where necessary to restrain, but always to inspire us!
