All Scholars

Donald William Bradeen was a pupil of Malcolm F. McGregor and succeeded him at the University of Cincinnati. He inherited from his teacher a strong interest in Greek history of the 6th and 5th centuries, especially as recovered through epigraphy. Like McGregor, he supported canonical views of controversial questions (the date 434/3 B.C. for the financial decrees of Callias, or the rule that Attic inscriptions using three-barred sigma must be earlier than ca. 445 B.C.).He and McGregor spent a year in Athens on the Attic inscriptions of the 5th century, carefully verifying readings and producing improvements in many texts. This research led to their book of 1973, in which several of the most important inscriptions are discussed in detail (in April of that same year, Bradeen died of a heart attack at 55). Besides this book, Bradeen's most significant writings include his publication of the funerary inscriptions from the Athenian Agora and his re-edition of the epigraphic fragments of the 5th-century Athenian archon list, an indispensable reference work in the tradition of Clinton's Fasti Hellenici. He was a demanding teacher, zealously devoted to his subjects and a man of high standards who enjoyed both the respect and the loyal affection of his students.