New Zealand professor of classics and ancient history
Vivienne Jean Gray (née Forbes, born 1947 or 1948) is a New Zealand academic, and is emeritus professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Auckland, specialising in historians Herodotus and Xenophon. She was previously Public Orator for the university.
Academic career.
Gray was born in 1947 or 1948. She grew up in Onehunga. In 1964 while still at high school, she went on an exchange to Australia organised by Lions Clubs International. She was educated at Onehunga High School, graduating in 1964. Gray received a postgraduate scholarship and completed a PhD at the University of Cambridge. In 1978 she was awarded a Rhodes Visiting Scholarship to Lady Margaret Hall at Oxford. Gray then joined the faculty of the University of Auckland, rising to full professor. She was also the university's Public Orator, giving the eulogies for honorary doctorates for Maurice Gee, Helen Clark, and Anand Satyanand, among others. 
Gray was the invited guest speaker at the founding meeting of the Australasian Women in Ancient World Studies. She spoke about the lives of New Zealand scholars Agathe Thornton and Daphne Hereward. Gray retired in 2011 and was appointed professor emeritus at the University of Auckland.
Gray is a specialist on the Greek philosopher and historian Xenophon, and has received international recognition of her work. She has published five books on Xenophon, including a work on his "Hellenica" in 1989, explaining the form and function of the "Hellenica", and arguing that it must first be understood as a literary work before it can be understood as an historical one. Gray followed this with a monograph on Xenophon's treatment of Socrates in 1998. Her 2007 book "On Government" describes three works on government, two by Xenophon ( the "Constitution of the Lacedaemonians" and the "Hiero") and one previously ascribed to him (the "Constitution of the Athenians"). In 2010 she wrote the Oxford Readings volume on Xenophon. As of 2024, her most recent work is the 2011 "Xenophon's Mirror of Princes", covering his work on leadership and arguing against the Straussian reading of irony in Xenophon's writings. Eve A. Browning described Gray as "a major driving force behind this Xenophon renaissance... whose energetic defense of his significance, uniqueness, philosophical depth, writing brilliance, and unified intellectual mission has been ongoing for two decades".
References.
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