Mattingly was born in
Finchley, London, the son of the historian and numismatist
Harold Mattingly. He attended
The Leys School in Cambridge and took a double first in
Classics at
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge in 1948. He subsequently held a Craven Scholarship from 1948 to 1950, writing a thesis on the
Roman Imperial Senate. He married Erica Stuart (died 2008), an artist and potter, with whom he had had three children, including
David Mattingly, Professor of Roman Archaeology at the
University of Leicester. ==Academic career==