All Scholars

T. R. S. Broughton was born in a small village in Ontario, Canada. He came, as he often proudly remarked, from the sturdy farmer stock, and he himself was not a stranger to farm work. His first two books, The Romanization of Africa Proconsularis (1929) and Roman Asia Minor (1938; despite new archaeological and epigraphical finds still the basic treatment of the subject), and a score of learned articles, had put him in the forefront of the students of ancient Rome. But then in 1951-2 there appeared his monumental The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. In this century four scholars changed the landscape of Roman studies: Friedrich Münzer (prosopographical contributions), Matthias Gelzer (Die Nobilität der römischen Republik [1912]), Ronald Syme (The Roman Revolution [1939])—and Broughton (Magistrates). Every year in Rome many dozens of various magistrates were elected or appointed. Modern Roman historians had a dream that all these men (and women: the Vestals) would one day be securely identified, distributed into single years, arranged in a clear chronological pattern of their political careers. Various attempts had been made (the first in the sixteenth century), none successful. The task was too daunting: five hundred years of history, many thousands of names, scattered throughout several scores of Greek and Roman authors, or to be found on coins and inscriptions. This was the task that the MRR accomplished, a labor of infinite erudition, patience, and wisdom. Most Roman republican historians at work today grew up in the monumental shadow of MRR. But this work also casts a shadow over its author. It concealed his immense learning, stretching far beyond the magistrates, Asia Minor or Africa (it also overshadowed some 50 articles and 90 reviews, many of them small masterpieces). Broughton was possessed of a phenomenal memory: with him at one's side, as many of his students and colleagues will attest, there was no need for Pauly-Wissowa. He loved literature, and would often recite long passages from an astounding variety of Greek and Latin authors, from Homer to the Greek Anthology, and from the English poets. A sense of gentle humor emanated from him; he cherished the title of his last monograph, on the candidates defeated in Roman elections: "Also-Rans." Of all the distinctions he received, the most symbolic was that of an Honorary Member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (1967), only the third American so honored. The two others were his venerated teacher Tenney Frank and his Bryn Mawr colleague Lily Ross Taylor, also a student of Frank's, a veritable American Roman dynasty.