Robert Étienne (French pronunciation: [ʁɔbɛʁ etjɛn]; 18 January 1921 – 9 January 2009) was a 20th-century French historian of ancient Rome.
A student of the École Normale Supérieure and agrégé of history, Robert Étienne was member of the École française de Rome from 1947 to 1949.
In 1958, he defended a doctoral thesis on the imperial cult in the Iberian Peninsula from Augustus to Diocletian.
Apart from a passage at the CNRS as research attaché, he spent his entire career at the University of Bordeaux as an assistant, lecturer and teacher.
He headed the Centre Pierre Paris, a unit associated with the CNRS and the French mission in Portugal.