Émile Espérandieu served in the military and was a historian, epigraphist and archaeologist specialising in Roman antiquities in North Africa and France. Along with Salomon Reinach and Camille Jullian, he oversaw the completion of the final volumes of the Dictionnaire archéologique de la Gaule.

The curator of the Roman monuments and musées archéologiques in Nîmes, Émile Espérandieu was appointed a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1919.