[2] His thesis was submitted in 1937, and the examiners M. Cary and R. Syme commended its "maturity of judgement such as one hardly dares to expect from a young scholar".
[3] Sherwin-White declined to accept the actual doctorate, preferring to remain known as "Mr", but he revised the thesis for publication as The Roman Citizenship (1939).
[2] Sherwin-White's poor eyesight kept him from active service during World War II, but the President of St John's wrote to the Director of Naval Intelligence to recommend him for a post,[3] and he was commissioned on 4 December 1941 as a Temporary Sub-Lieutenant.
[4] Arising from his studies of Roman law and administration, this indicated "his conviction of the essential historicity of the narratives in the New Testament",[5] especially in the critique he mounted in his closing pages against "form-criticism of the extremer sort".
[5] In Millar's assessment, it "combined immense erudition, percipience and sharpness of vision with a curious slapdashness about small details";[4] these errors were keenly hunted down by contemporary reviewers.
Although he was a potential choice to succeed Ronald Syme as Camden Professor of Ancient History in 1970, this role went to Peter Brunt.