Carl Joachim Classen (15 August 1928 - 29 September 2013[1]) was a German classical scholar.

[1] His academic teachers include Ernst Zinn and Bruno Snell in Hamburg and Kurt Latte in Göttingen.

After his return to Germany (in 1959) he worked as a lecturer at the Göttingen university, completing his Habilitation in 1961.

His main scientific interests included Ancient Historiography, Greek and Roman Rhetorics, Roman Satire, Humanism and the History of Classical Scholarship.

He was the author and editor of several monographs and essays on those subjects, his works being published in German, English, Serbian and Estonian.