ALLEN, Walter, Jr.

Date of Birth: November 12, 1911
Born City: Meriden
Born State/Country: CT
Parents: Walter & Martha A.
Date of Death: May 29, 2001
Death City: Pinellas
Death State/Country: FL
Education:
A.B. Wesleyan U., 1932; Ph.D., Yale, 1936.
Dissertation:
"The Yale Manuscript of Tacitus (Codex Budensis Rhenani)" (Yale, 1936).
Professional Experience:
Instr. classics, Princeton, U., 1936-40; Yale, 1940-2; asso. prof. to prof. Latin, U. of North Carolina, 1946-76.
Publications:
“The Yale Manuscript of Tacitus,” Yale Univ. Library Gazette 11 (1937) 81-6; “Catullus XLIX and Sallust's Bellum Catilinae,” CJ 32 (1937) 298; “Caesar Borrows Cicero's Wit,” CJ 32 (1937) 363-4; “Claudius or Clodius?,” CJ 33 (1937) 107-10; “Beatus Rhenanus, Editor of Tacitus and Livy,” Speculum (1937) 382-5; “The Terentianus of the περι ὕψους,” TAPA 69 (1938) xxx-xxxi; “On the Importance of Young Men in Ciceronian Politics,” CJ 33 (1938) 357-9; “The Source of Jugurtha's Influence in the Roman Senate,” CP 33 (1938) 90-2; “On the Friendship of Lucretius with Memmius,” CP 33 (1938) 167-81; “The Four Corvinus Manuscripts in the United States,” Bull. of the New York Public Libr. 42 (1938) 315-23; “In Defense of Catiline,” CJ 34 (1938) 70-85; “The Theme of the Suitors in the Odyssey,” TAPA 70 (1939) 104-24; “The Patrons of Philodemus,” with P.H. De Lacy, CP 34 (1939) 59-65; “Histories IV,46-53,” YCS 6 (1939) 29-38; “The Location of Cicero's House on the Palatine Hill,” CJ 35 (1939) 134-43; John Rainolds, Oratio in laudem artis poeticae (trans.) with a comm. by W. Ringler (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1940). REVS: CW 35 (1941-1942) 102-103 Heironimus; “Nisbet on the Question of the Location of Cicero's House,” CJ 35 (1940) 291-5; “The Epyllion. A Chapter in the History of Literary Criticism,” TAPA 71 (1940) 1-26; “The Terentianus of the περι ὕψους,” AJP 62 (1941) 51-64; “The Political Atmosphere of the Reign of Tiberius,” TAPA 72 (1941) 1-25; “Cicero's House and Libertas,” TAPA 75 (1944) 1-9; “German and Italian Publications in Classics 1940-1945,” with B.L. Ullman & A.I. Suskin, CW 40 (1946) 15-16, 40, 48, 56, 63-4; “The Political Career of Catullus,” CO 24 (1947) 65-6; “The Death of Agrippa Postumus,” TAPA 78 (1947) 131-9; “A Minor Type of Opposition to Tiberius,” CJ 44 (1948) 203-6; “Sallust's Political Career,” TAPA 80 (1949) 425; “Legendus est Cicero,” CJ 44 (1949) 260-3; “The 'Vettius Affair' Once More,” TAPA 81 (1950) 153-63; “The Lucii Afranii of Cic. Att. I.16.13,” TAPA 82 (1951) 127-35; “Cicero's Provincial Governorship in 63 B.C.,” TAPA 83 (1952) 233-41; “Cicero's Salutatio (In Catilinam, I, 9),” in Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson on His Seventieth Birthday II, ed. G.E. Mylonas & D. Raymond (St. Louis: Washington U. Press, 1953) 707-10; “The Acting Governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 63 B.C. (Sallust Cat. 42.3), CP 48 (1953) 176-7; “Caesar's regnum (Suet., Iul. 9.2),” TAPA 84 (1953) 227-36; “A Survey of Selected Ciceronian Bibliography, 1939-1953,” CW 47 (1954) 129-39; “Cicero's Conceit,” TAPA 85 (1954) 121-44; “Sallust's Political Career,” SPh 51,1 (1954) 1-14; “Teaching the Classics in Translation,” CW 48 (1955) 105-16; “The British Epics of Quintus and Marcus Cicero,” TAPA 86 (1955) 143-59; “O fortunatam natam...,” TAPA 87 (1956) 130-46; “Imperial Mementos in Suetonius,” CB 35 (1958) 1-4; “The Non-Existent Classical Epyllion,” SPh 55 (1958) 515-18; “Stage Money (fabam mimum, Cic. Att. I.16.13),” TAPA 90 (1959) 1-8; “Cicero's Last Letter to Terentia (Fam. XIV.20),” in Studies in Honor of B.L. Ullman, Presented to Him on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. L.B. Lawler, D.M. Robathan & W.C. Korfmacher (St. Louis: Classical Bulletin, 1960) 58-9; “Epic and Etiquette in Tacitus' Annals,” with the Tacitus seminar, SPh 58 (1961) 557-72; “Number of Letters in Cicero's Correspondence,” with the Cicero seminar, CB 38 (1961) 1-3; “Imperial Table Manners in Tacitus' Annals,” and the Tacitus seminar[1], Latomus 21 (1962) 374-6; “Nero's Eccentricities before the Fire (Tac. Ann. 15.37),” and the Tacitus seminar[2], Numen 9 (1962) 99-109; “The Day after Rome Was Built,” CJ 58 (1963) 337-47; “The Unity of the Sallustian Corpus,” CJ 61 (1966) 268-9; “The Addressees in Horace's First Book of Epistles,” with the Horace seminar[3], SPh 67 (1970) 255-66; “Martial. Knight, Publisher and Poet,” with others,[4] CJ 65 (1970) 345-57; “The Leyden Ms. of Tacitus' Major Works,” TAPA 101 (1970) 1-28; “Horace's First Book of Epistles as Letters,” with others[5], CJ 68 (1972) 119-33; “Ovid's cantare and Cicero's cantores Euphorionis,” TAPA 103 (1972) 1-14.

[1] Robert J. Barnett, Jr., Mary D. Beaty, Bärbel Becker, Frederick Behrends, W. F. Bogess, Theodore Crane, Jr., Kathleen Ann Dempsey, L. E. Garrido, R. R Harris, Vivian L. Holliday, Richard C. Jensen, William C. Kurth, M. A. Robbins, and H. W. Taylor, Jr.

[2] Robert J. Barnett, Jr., Mary D. Beaty, Bärbel Becker, Frederick Behrends, W. F. Bogess, Theodore Crane, Jr., Kathleen Ann Dempsey, L. E. Garrido, R. R Harris, Vivian L. Holliday, Richard C. Jensen, William C. Kurth, M. A. Robbins, and H. W. Taylor, Jr.

[3] Martha J. Beveridge, Thomas B. Curtis, Barbara K. Gold, Sister St. Louis O'Mara, Donna M. Sitterson.

[4] Martha J. Beveridge, William J. Downes, Hugh M. Fincher III, Barbara Kirk Gold, E. Christian Kopf, Lawrence J. Simms, and Lois H. Walsh.

[5] Susan A. Carlson, William M. Clarke, Nicholas P. Gross, Ralph Hall, Diane F. Hatch, E. Christian Kopff, Martha J. Payne, Lawrence J. Simms, Roy Charles Zartarian.
Notes:
Walter Allen, Jr. taught Latin as associate professor (1946-49) and professor (1949-70) for twenty four years at U. of North Carolina. After receiving his Ph.D. from Yale 1936, he became an instructor at Princeton (1936-40) and Yale (1940-42) before joining the US Navy, in which he served 1942-45. His early years were extraordinarily productive: by 1941 he had published 19 articles. Several built on his study of the Yale manuscript of Tacitus and its use by an early possessor, Beatus Rhenanus (1485-1547); others addressed Lucretius, Homer, Tacitus, Cicero, and the manuscript tradition of Longinus. His interest in the renaissance extended to a translation of the Oratio in laudem artis poeticae of John Rainolds (1549-1607). His article in TAPA 71 (1940) on the epyllion continues to be cited in discussions of Hellenistic and Roman epic. After his service in the navy, 1942-45, he resumed scholarly activity, publishing from 1944 to 1960 items on Cicero, Catullus, Sallust, and Tacitus. In the period 1961-1972 he returned to his work on the manuscripts of Tacitus, and published material derived from his seminars in Tacitus, Martial and Horace.

Allen was a very popular teacher of both graduate students and undergraduates, and many stories are reported of his witticisms, of the clarity of his presentation, and his encouragement of his students. He was famous for his course in Latin composition, taught, from the first day in Latin. Five of his articles written from 1962 to 1972 gave full credit to the students in his seminars, who were listed as co-authors. His article on teaching the classics (CW 48, 1955) indicates how carefully he had thought of the issues in reaching undergraduate audiences. At his retirement he left Chapel Hill for the warmer climate of Florida.
Sources:
DAS 8:8.
Author: Philip A. Stadter

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ALLEN, Walter, Jr.