George Boys-Stones read Classics at Christ's College Cambridge, and wrote his doctoral dissertation (on Plutarch and the Stoics) under the supervision of Michael Frede at St John's College, Oxford. From 1995 to 1998 as a Junior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford he started working on philosophy in the Roman Mediterranean during the period 100 BCE to 200 CE. He taught in the Classics Department at Durham University for 20 years from 1999 (serving as Head of Department in 2009–2012). In 2019 he moved to the University of Toronto, where he is currently Chair of the Classics Department.