Erich Stephen Gruen (/ˈɡruːən/ GROO-ən, German: [ˈɡʁuːən]; born May 7, 1935) is an American classicist and ancient historian.
[1] He was the Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught full-time from 1966 until 2008.
Gruen's argument is that the Republic was not in decay, and so not necessarily in need of "rescue" by Caesar Augustus and the institutions of the Empire.
Despite his retirement from full-time teaching, he continues to oversee doctoral dissertations and is widely sought for visiting professorships.
[5] On September 26-27, 2024, the University of California at Berkeley held a two-day conference "to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1974 publication of Erich Gruen's landmark study, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic.