Predominantly Scottish on his father’s side and part Cornish on his mother’s, he was born midway between Scotland and Cornwall, in Birmingham, England, on 26 April 1940. He was educated at Shrewsbury School (1953-1958) and Trinity College, Dublin (1958-1963). At TCD he was a Foundation Scholar and gold medallist in Classics (1960). After gaining First Class Honours and a Moderatorship Prize (1962), he did postgraduate research for a thesis entitled Lucretius: The Man and His Mission (MLitt, Dublin, 1965).

Between 1963 and 1988 he taught Classics at the University College of North Wales, Bangor (now Bangor University), from 1977 as Professor. From 1988 he was Professor of Classics at Durham University. Because of increasing problems with his eyesight, he took early retirement from university teaching in 1995. He maintains his association with Durham University as Professor Emeritus in the Department of Classics and Ancient History and as a founder member of Durham Centre for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy www.dcamp.uk.

Since 1995 he has lived in voluntary self-isolation on Foula, a remote and rugged island 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of the Shetland mainland. The population is about 30. There is no shop or place of entertainment; the electricity comes and goes; and the island, the windiest location in the UK, is frequently cut off by bad weather. Martin acquired a 10-acre (4-hectare) croft, where he was soon joined by two attractive brunettes with long hair – and still longer horns! The pair of Highland cows, Frangag II of Glamis Castle (“Fran”), granddaughter of Macbeth, and the Empress Plotina, gained fans around the world and are the heroines (although not portrayed as Highlanders) of a charming and instructive children’s book in Portuguese written by Ana Vicente and illustrated by Madalena Matoso (Quanto Pesa um Quilograma?). In summer Martin’s fields are a spectacularly colourful carpet of wild flowers, and the croft is a sanctuary for numerous species of native and migratory birds. He enjoys the further blessings of no television and no mobile telephone signal. His chief recreations are walking, gardening, cryptic crosswords, and baroque music.

Martin married Elizabeth Mary Dempsey (1935-1997) of Dublin on 4 April 1964. The marriage was dissolved in 1981. He has a daughter and a granddaughter. In “retirement” he has continued to be very active in research and writing. In 2007 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) “for services to scholarship”.

Member of Council, Society for Promotion of Hellenic Studies, 1973-1976
Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA), 1975-
President of the Albanian Society, 1982-1991
Leverhulme Research Fellow, 1987-1988
Member of the Council of Management, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, 1987-1994
Member of the Asia Minor Commission (Kleinasiatische Kommission), Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1990-2007
Awarded the degree of Doctor in Letters (LittD) by the University of Dublin, 1993
Awarded the International Theodor Mommsen Prize for Herculaneum Papyrology, Pozzuoli, Italy, 2004
Member of the Editorial and Advisory Board of the archaeological and historical journal Adalya (Turkey), 2004-
Member of the Research Institute of Mediterranean Civilisations (AKMED), Antalya, Turkey, 2004-
Appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), June 2007
Member of the Scientific Committee of the journal Cronache Ercolanesi (Naples, Italy) 2012-
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS), 2016-
Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) 2018-
Corresponding Member of the German Archaeological Institute (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut), 2020-
Member of the Academic Advisory Board of the philosophical journal Arkhe-Logos (Turkey), 2022-

Martin has an international reputation for his work on the Roman writer Lucretius (c.98-c.55 BC), who presented the doctrines of the Greek philosopher Epicurus in his epic of the universe, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things), arguably the greatest philosophical and scientific poem ever written. His translation of it was first published by Sphere Books of London in 1969. In his award-winning book The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began (Norton: New York, 2011), Stephen Greenblatt of Harvard University describes how the access the translation gave him to Lucretius opened up a whole new world for him.

The translation was re-issued in revised form, with extended introduction and notes, by Hackett of Indianapolis in 2001. The new edition of the translation, described by Lucretius specialist Gordon Campbell as “streets ahead of the competition”, has sold over 30,000 copies. It was one of the last books to be read by the celebrated American novelist Philip Roth before he died (New York Times, 16 and 23 January 2018).

Martin is also the editor of the Loeb Classical Library text of Lucretius (1975, with further editions in 1982 and 1992), published by Harvard University Press. ISBN 0- 674-99200- 8. The Latin text, the introduction, critical and explanatory notes, bibliography, and index are his doing, while the translation is that of W.H.D. Rouse (1924), revised to make it accord with the new text. This work too has been widely and highly praised. E.J. Kenney, former Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge University, called it “the best and most widely accessible of the editions available”. It is the one the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a Classics graduate of Oxford University, chose to take to Scotland as part of his holiday reading in August 2020.

Most classical scholars spend their time studying Greek and Latin texts that have been known for many centuries. When Martin was an undergraduate student, he was inspired by stories of those who have discovered new texts, whether manuscripts unnoticed in libraries, papyri preserved in the sands of Egypt or the volcanic ash of Herculaneum, or inscriptions. He formed an ambition to follow in their footsteps – an ambition which over the past half century he has fulfilled beyond his wildest dreams.

In 1967 he began to interest himself in Diogenes of Oinoanda, who, probably early in the second century AD, expounded the philosophy of Epicurus in a gigantic Greek inscription carved on the wall of a stoa (colonnade) in his home-city in northern Lycia, in the mountains of southwest Asia Minor (Turkey).

88 pieces of the inscription, of varying sizes, had been found by French and Austrian epigraphists late in the nineteenth century. The discoveries naturally attracted the attention of specialists in ancient philosophy, but no attempt to find more of Diogenes’ work, or even to re-examine the pieces already discovered, was made until 1968, when Martin made the first of many visits to Oinoanda.

Working first on his own (1968-1973), then as a member of teams from the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (1974-2003), he recorded and published 135 more pieces of the inscription, bringing the total of known fragments to 223 and contributing several thousand words to Diogenes’ valuable exposition of Epicureanism, one of the most important and influential philosophies in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. He also rediscovered most of the texts found in the nineteenth century and published fuller and more accurate readings of them.

Martin estimates that the inscription originally contained about 25,000 words, which makes it much the largest inscription known from the ancient world. It is unique also in presenting a complete system of philosophy. Diogenes tells his readers that he is “at the sunset of his life” and wishes, before he dies, to share with them “the remedies that bring salvation”, by which he means the philosophical “medicine” devised by Epicurus to cure the moral sickness that afflicts most human beings, by eliminating their unnecessary fears and desires and so enabling them to achieve the perfect peace of mind in which perfect happiness consists. He addresses not only his contemporaries, but also generations to come (“for they are our concern, although they are not yet born”). Moreover, he wants to benefit foreigners as well as Oinoandans – or rather “those who are called foreigners, although they are not really that, for … the whole compass of this world gives all people a single country … and a single home.” His philanthropic and cosmopolitan message, addressed urbi et orbi (to the city and the world), is remarkable and highly relevant to our age, as is his (and Epicurus’) conviction that scientific knowledge, properly applied, can rid us of fear, especially of the gods and of death.

The wall that carried the inscription no longer stands. In late antiquity the stoa was either destroyed by an earthquake or deliberately demolished, and the blocks of the inscription were re-used as building material over a wide area of the city, which means that recovering Diogenes’ work is an exercise rather like that of assembling a massive jigsaw puzzle, with the extra difficulties that many of the pieces are damaged or missing. The inscription occupied several (probably seven) horizontal courses of the wall, and the lettering in the upper courses, which were above eye level, was larger than that in the lower ones.

In 2007 further investigations at Oinoanda were begun by an international team directed by Dr Martin Bachmann, Vice-Director of the German Archaeological Institute in Istanbul. The new exploration of the site continued in 2008-2012 and, briefly, 2015 and 2017. Professor Jürgen Hammerstaedt, of the University of Cologne, and Martin (Smith) have collaborated closely and fruitfully in recording, editing, and publishing the 82 new pieces of Diogenes’ inscription that were found. More pieces not seen for well over a century were also brought to light. All the visible fragments, “old” and “new”, were recorded not only by the traditional methods of photography and the making of epigraphic “squeezes” (impressions obtained by using a brush to beat wetted filter paper into the letters inscribed on the stones), but also by 3D laser scanning. The 3D images are a valuable new tool of research, not least because they enable the wall of the stoa to be rebuilt in virtual reality. Another important achievement during the latest work at Oinoanda was the erection, in 2010, of a steel storehouse on the site to accommodate the pieces of the inscription and keep them safe for posterity.

Despite the sudden and untimely death of Martin Bachmann on 3 August 2016, the Oinoanda project, including work on Diogenes’ inscription, continues. What has been recovered of the inscription (totalling 305 pieces and about 8,000 words) is only a fraction, no more than a third, of the complete work, and there is a need for large-scale excavations to bring to light the buried parts of one of the most remarkable and attractive documents to survive from the ancient world – a document whose moral message is as relevant and important to us today as it was in Diogenes’ time.

Martin has presented the new discoveries at Oinoanda, as well as the revised and much improved texts of the nineteenth-century finds, in five books, the most recent one co-authored with Jürgen Hammerstaedt, and about 75 articles.

Books on Diogenes

1.Thirteen New Fragments of Diogenes of Oenoanda (Ergänzungsbände zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 6). Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 1974. ISBN 3-7001- 0085-X.

2.Diogenes of Oinoanda, The Epicurean Inscription (La scuola di Epicuro, Supplemento 1). Bibliopolis, Napoli, 1993. ISBN 88-7088- 270-5. Lengthy introduction, Greek text, critical notes, English translation, explanatory notes, Greek indices, and illustrations.

3.The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda (Ergänzungsbände zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 20). Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, 1996. ISBN 3-7001- 2596-8. A companion volume to 2, containing drawings and photographs of the pieces of Diogenes’ inscription.

4.Supplement to Diogenes of Oinoanda, The Epicurean Inscription (La scuola di Epicuro, Supplemento 3). Bibliopolis, Napoli, 2003. ISBN 88-7088- 441-4. Presents new texts found, and new work done, after the publication of 2. Awarded the International Theodor Mommsen Prize for Herculaneum Papyrology, 2004.

6.NEW! Urbi et Orbi: The Epicurean Inscription and Prescription of Diogenes of Oinoanda. English translation of the Greek, with Introduction and Notes, by Martin Ferguson Smith, Doxai Series: Testi e studi di filosofia antica, Tab edizioni, Rome. Open Access and paperback. Expected early April 2026.

Recent Articles on Diogenes (selection)

“New Research at Oinoanda and a New Fragment of the Epicurean Diogenes (NF 213)”, Epigraphica Anatolica 49 (2016) 109-125. Co-author with Jürgen Hammerstaedt.

“Foreword: The Importance of Diogenes of Oinoanda”, in J. Hammerstaedt, P-M. Morel, and R. Güremen (eds), Diogenes of Oinoanda: Epicureanism and Philosophical Debates, Leuven University Press (2017) xi-xvii.

“Diogenes of Oinoanda: The New and Unexpected Discoveries of 2017 (NF 214-219), With a Re-edition of Fr. 70-72”, Epigraphica Anatolica 51 (2018) 43-79. With Jürgen Hammerstaedt.

“Diogenes of Oinoanda: News and Notes XIII (2018)”, Cronache Ercolanesi 49 (2019) 301-313.

"A New Look at Diogenes of Oinoanda, Fr. 157 Smith", Hyperboreus 25, 2 (2019) 351-362. 2 figures.
READ AT: http://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/pdf/Hyperboreus.pdf

“Fifty Years of New Epicurean Discoveries at Oinoanda”, Cronache Ercolanesi 50 (2020) 241-258.
Chronicles the remarkable story of Diogenes’ inscription from antiquity to the present, with particular focus on the discoveries and rediscoveries made at Oinoanda in 1968-2017.
READ HERE http://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/pdf/CRONACHEERCOLANES.pdf

“Diogenes of Oinoanda: News and Notes XIV (2019-2021)”, Cronache Ercolanesi 52 (2022) 383-399. One figure. A survey of recent work, including details of activities and a critical review of over fifty relevant publications. There is also a tribute to the late Jim Coulton.
READ HERE http://www.martinfergusonsmith.com/pdf/CRONACHE.pdf

NEW! “Oinoandalı Diogenes Önemi” (çev. Serena Nur Erkızan), Arkhe-logos, Cilt 8, Sayı 15 (ağustos 2023). In Turkish.

NEW! “Diogenes of Oinoanda Fr. 65 + Fr. 78: A Join Enabled by Digital Models”, Epigraphica Anatolica 55 (2022 [2024]), 121-129. Illustrated. With Jürgen Hammerstaedt.

NEW! “Die epikureische Inschrift des Diogenes von Oinoanda”, in M. Bachmann, J. Hammerstaedt, E. Laufer (eds), Oinoanda: Ergebnisse der Surveys 2007-2015: Bauforschung, Archäologie, Epigraphik, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Istanbuler Forschungen 57, Wiesbaden, 2025, 371-393. With Jürgen Hammerstaedt. In German.

An award-winning documentary film, A Gigantic Jigsaw Puzzle: The Epicurean Inscription of Diogenes of Oinoanda, directed by Nazim Güveloğlu, was shot at Oinoanda in 2011. Martin takes a leading (and wholly unrehearsed) part in it.