• Date of Birth: November 02, 1938
  • Born City: Fresno
  • Born State/Country: CA
  • Parents: Norman William & Florence Patricia Diskin C.
  • Date of Death: June 09, 2014
  • Death City: Durham
  • Death State/Country: NC
  • Married: Jenny Strauss, 1963-77; Sara Christine Clark, 1978-99; Andrea Purvis, 2000-14.
  • Education:

    B.A. Reed College, 1960; M.A. (Classics), University of Washington, Seattle, 1963; Ph.D., 1967

  • Dissertation:

    "Lucretius' Translation of Greek Philosophy" (Washington, 1967).

  • Professional Experience:

    Fulbright fell., Universities of Montpelier & Poitiers, 1960-61; asst. prof. Classics & Humanities, Reed College, 1966-70; jr. fell., Center for Hellenic Studies, 1969-70; asst. to asso. prof. Classics, Haverford College, 1970-76; vis. prof., Université de Lille, 1972; jr. fellow, NEH, 1974-75; vis. prof. Johns Hopkins, 1975-76; asso. prof. to prof. classics, 1976-1980; chair dept, classics, 1976-83; Francis White Prof. Greek, 1980-88; Blegen Prof. Vassar, 1985-86; Distinguished Prof. Classics, Philosophy, & Comparative Literature, Graduate Center, City University of New York, 1988-90; Elizabeth Whitehead Prof. ASCSA, 1988-89; Arts & Sciences Professor of Classical Studies, Duke, 1990-91; R.J.R. Nabisco Prof. Classical Studies, 1991-2008; dir. grad. studies, 2001-2008; prof. at Duke in Florence, Villa Corsi-Salviati, Sesto Florentino, 2000; ed. AJP, 1982-87

  • Publications:

    Books

    All Soul’s Day (Portland, OR: Reed Press, 1968); Oxyrhynchan Poems (Portland, OR: Press 22, 1973); Sophocles' Oedipus the King (trans. with Stephen Berg) (intro. & notes) (New York:  Oxford U. Press, 1978; paperback ed., 1988; repr. in Donald Hall, To Read Literature: Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1989); The Riverside Anthology of Literature (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997); The Complete Sophocles I, ed. Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro (New York: Oxford U. Press, 2010); Lucretius and Epicurus Ithaca, NT: Cornell U. Press, 1983); John Locke: Questions concerning the Law of Nature, ed. & trans. with Robert Horwitz & Jenny Strauss Clay (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. Press, 1990); Philodemus: On Frank Criticism, intro., trans & notes with David Konstan, Terence E. Glad, Johan C. Tom, and James P. Ware ( Atlanta: The Society for Biblical Literature, Scholars Press, 1998); Four Island Utopias: Being Plato's Atlantis, Euhemeros of Messene's Panchaia, Iamboulos' Island of the Sun, and Francis Bacon's New Atlantis (trans. & intro. with Andrea Purvis) (Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 1999); Platonic Questions: Dialogues with the Silent Philosopher (U. Park, PA: Pennsylvania State U. Press, 2000); Sophocles' Philoctetes, trans. Carl Phillips (intro & notes), Greek Tragedy in New Translation New York: Oxford U. Press, 2003; repr. The Complete Sophocles II, ed. Peter Burian & Alan Shapiro (New York: Oxford U., 2009); Archilochos Heros: The Cult of Poets in the Greek Polis (Hellenic Studies 6) (Cambridge, MA: Center for Hellenic Studies and Harvard U. Press, 2004); Euripides, The Trojan Women (trans. with notes & two appendices) (Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2005; repr. with revisions as part of Odysseus at Troy: Ajax, Hecuba, and Trojan Women, ed. Stephen Esposito (Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing, 2009); .

     

    Articles 

    “The Daggers at Agamemnon 714-715,” Philologus 110 (1966) 128-31; “The Aspiration of ethmos,” Glotta 46 (1968) 15-18; “Aeschylus' Trigeron Mythos,” Hermes 97 (1969) 1-9; “De Rerum Natura: Greek Physis and Epicurean Physiology (Lucretius 1.1-148),” TAPA 100 (1968) 119-29, repr. as Chapter 7 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “Fragmentum Adespotum 976,” TAPA 101 (1970) 119-29, repr. Greek Literature, ed. Gregory Nagy (London 2001) 3:197-207; “Socrates' Mulishness and Heroism,” Phronesis 17 (1972) 53-60; “Epicurus' Kyria Doxa XVII,” GRBS 13 (1972) 59-66, repr. as Chapter 2 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “Sailing to Lampsacus: Diogenes of Oenoanda, New Fragment 7,” GRBS 14 (1973) 49-59, repr. as Chapter 11 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “Epicurus' Last Will and Testament,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 55: 252-80, repr. as Chapter 1 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998);  “Classical Studies in Small Liberal Arts Colleges, The Classical Journal 68:2 (1972/1973) 155-160; “The Tragic and Comic Poet of the Symposium,” Arion N. S.2 (1975) 238-261, repr. Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy II, ed. J. Anton and A. Preus (Albany: State U. of New York Press, 1983) 186-202; and in Greek Literature, ed. Gregory Nagy (London: Routledge, 2001) 6. 174-97; “The Sources of Lucretius' Inspiration,” Études sur l'epicurisme antique, Cahiers de Philologie I, ed. Jean Bollack and André Laks, (Lille, 1976) 203-27, repr. as Chapter 8 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; and with slight revisions and additions in Oxford Readings in Lucretius, ed, Monica Gale: (Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2007) 18-46); “The Silence of Hermippos: Greece in the Poetry of Cavafy,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 3 (1997) 95-116; repr. The Mind and Art of C. P. Cavafy (Athens: Denise Harvey, 1983) 157-81; “A Gymnasium Inventory from the Athenian Agora,” Hesperia 46 (1977) 259-67; “Lucretius contra Empedoclen: A Textual Note,” CJ 73 (1977) 27-9; “Philippson's 'Basilica' and Diogenes' Stoa,” American Journal of Philology 99 (1978) 120-3, repr. as Chapter 13 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “Socrates' Prayer to Pan,” in Arktouros: Hellenic Studies presented to Bernard M. W. Knox, ed. G. Bowersock, W. Burkert, and M. Putnam (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979) 345-53; “An Epicurean Interpretation of Dreams,” American Journal of Philology 101 (1980) 342-65, repr. as Chapter 14 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “Epicurus in the Archives of Athens,” in Studies in Attic Epigraphy, History, and Topography presented to Eugene Vanderpool, Hesperia Supplement XIX (1982) 17-26, repr. as Chapter 3 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “Georg Luck and a Decade of AJP,” AJP 103 (1982) 1-3; “Unspeakable Words in Greek Tragedy,” AJP 103 (1982) 277-98, repr. in Greek Literature, ed. Gregory Nagy (London: Routledge 2001) 4.443-464; “Individual and Community in the First Generation of the Epicurean School,” in ΣYZHTHΣIΣ: Studi sull'epicureismo greco e romano offerti a Marcello Gigante (Naples: G. Macchiaroli, 1983) I. 255-79, repr. as Chapter 4 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “The Cult of Epicurus: An Interpretation of Philodemus On Epicurus (PHerc. 1232) and Other Texts,” in Atti del XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia(Naples: Centro internazionale per lo studio dei papiri ercolanesi, 1984) 677-9; “The Means to Epicurus' Salvation: The 'Crux' at Diogenes of Oenoanda, NF 7 II 12,” in Studi in onore di Adelmo Barigazzi ISileno 10 (1984) 169-75 repr. as Chapter 12 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “The Art of Glaukos (Plato, Phaedo 108D4-9),” AJP 106 (1985) 230-6; “The Cults of Epicurus,” Cronache ercolanesi 16 (1986) 12-28, repr. as Chapter 5 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “C. P. Cavafy: The Poet in the Reader,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 5 (1987) 65-83; “Gaps in the Universe of the Platonic Dialogues,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 3, ed. John J. Cleary (Lanham, MD, University Press of America, 1987) 71-94; “Reading the Republic,” Chapter 1 in Platonic Readings / Platonic Writings, ed. Charles Griswold, Jr. (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul: 1988) 19-33, 269-72, repr. with revisions as Chapter XXX in Platonic Questions, 2000; “The Archaeology of the Temple to Juno in Carthage (Aen. 1.446-93),” CP 83:3 (1988) 195-205; “Dante's Broken Faith: The Sin of the Second Circle,” in Dante Today, ed. Amilcare Ianucci, Quaderni di Italianistica 10 (1989) 91-108; “Greek Studies in the United States,” in Filologia Greca e Latina nel Secolo XX: Atti del Congresso Internazionale, Roma, 17-21 Settembre 1984 Pisa: Giardini, 1989) I:263-94; “A Lost Epicurean Community,” in Tradition and Innovation in Epicureanism, ed. Paul A. Vander Waerdt, GRBS 30 (1989) 313-35, repr. as Chapter 15 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries 1969-1983,” ANRW  II 36:4, ed. W. Haase (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990) 2446-2560 with 10 Plates and Index, 3221-32; “Missing Persons: or The Selfless Greeks,” in The Search for the Individual: Roots of Western Civilization, ed. W. J. Carroll, Jr., J. J. Furlong, and C. Stephen Mann New York: Peter Lang, 1990) 13-22; “On a Forgotten Kind of Reading,” in Leo Strauss's   Thought: Toward a Critical Engagement, ed. Alan Udoff (Boulder CO: L. Rienner 1991) 252-66; “Alcman's Partheneion,” QUCC, n. s. 39 (1991) 47-67; “Lucian of Samosata: Four Philosophical Lives (Nigrinus, Demonax, Peregrinus, Alexander Pseudomantis),” ANRW II 35.6, ed. W. Haase (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992) 3406-50; “Plato's First Words,” in Beginnings in Classical Literature, ed. F. M. Dunn and Thomas Cole, YCS 29 (1992) 113-29; “Columbus' Senecan Prophecy,” Brief Mention, AJP 113 (1992) 617-20; “The World of Hesiod,” in The Ramus Essays on Hesiod II,ed. Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Ramus 21.2 (1992) 131-55; “Plato's Magnesia,” in NomodeiktesGreek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald, ed. Joseph Farrell and Ralph M. Rosen (Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 1993) 435-45; “William Ayers Arrowsmith: The Years at Johns Hopkins,” In Memoriam William ArrowsmithArion Third Series 2 & 3 (1993) 263-7; “‘Hellenistic’ Philosophy,” in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. K.J. Boudouris (Athens: International Center for Greek Philosophy and Culture, 1993) I. 51-60; “The Origins of the Socratic Dialogue,” in The Socratic Movement, ed. Paul A. Vander Waerdt, Ithaca, NY: Cornell U. Press: 1994) 23-47; “Framing the Margins of Philodemus and Poetry,” in Philodemus & Poetry: Poetic Theory & Practice in Lucretius, Philodemus, & Horace, ed. Dirk Obbink (New York: Oxford U. Press,1995) 3-14; “An Anatomy of Lucretian Metaphor,” in Epicureismo Greco e Romano: Atti del Congresso InternazionaleNapoli, Maggio, 19-26, 1993 (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1996) 779-93, repr. as Chapter 8 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “Picturing Diogenes,” in The CynicsThe Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy, ed. R. Bracht Branham and Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1996) 366-387; “On the Yellow Thistles,” Arion 4.2. (1996) 112; Critias (trans.), in The Complete Dialogues of Plato, ed. J. M. Cooper. (Indianapolis IN, Hackett, 1997) 1292-1306; articles on Dialogue (Greek and Latin), Diogenes of Oenoanda, Phaedrus (Epicureus), Poets, Lyric and Elegiac,Polystratus, Zeno (Sidonius) in the Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy, ed. Donald J. Zeyl (Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997); “The Fate of Fortuna,” Oxymoron 1 (1997) 73-8; “Greek Poets and Strangers,” in A Dedication to George Seferis, The New Griffin N.S. 2 (1997) 39-47; “The Plan of Plato's Critias,” in Proceedings of the IV Symposium Platonicum: Interpreting the Timaeus and CritiasGrenada, September 1995 Studia Platonica 9 (Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 1997) 49-54; “Lucretius' Gigantomachy,” in Lucretius and His Intellectual Background, ed. K.A. Algra, M.H. Koenen, and P.H. Schrijvers (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1997) 187-92, repr. as Chapter 10 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998; “The Essential Karaghiozis,” ASCSA Newsletter 40 (1997) 5; “The Theory of the Literary Persona in Antiquity,” Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 40 (1998) 9-40; “Philodemus on the Plain Speaking of the Other Philosophers” in Paradosis and Survival: Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy (Ann Arbor: U. of Michigan Press, 1998), chapter 6 reprinted in Philodemus and the New Testament World,” ed. John Fitzgerald and Glenn Howland (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 55-71; “The Metamorphosis of Ovid in the Commedia,” in Dante, Mito e Poesia: Atti del secondo seminario dantesco internazionaleMonte Verità - Ascona 23/27 giugnio 1997, ed. Michelangelo Picone and Tatiana Crivelli (Florence: Franco Cesati Editore, 1999) 69-87, repr. as “The Metamorphosis of Ovid in Dante’s Divine Comedy,” in J. Miller & Carole E. Newlands, ed., A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid (Chichester: Wiley, 2014) 174-86; “Plato’s Atlantis: The Anatomy of a Fiction,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 15, ed. John J. Cleary and Gary M. Gurtler, S. J. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1999) 1-21; “Diogenes and his Gods,” Epikureismus in der späten Republik und der Kaiserzeit, Akten der 2. Tagung der Karl-und-Gertrud-.Abel-Stiftung vom 30. September - 3. Oktober 1998 in Würzburg, ed. Michael Erler (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000) 76-92; “Heroes and Heroines,” in Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition, ed. Graham Speake (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000) 1.742-4; “Plato (the Republic)” in The Encyclopedia of Literary Translation into English, ed. Olive Classe (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001) 2.1080-2; “The Reader’s Guide to ‘The Utopia Reader’,” IJCT 7,4 (2001) 548-64; “The Scandal of Dionysos on Paros: The Mnesiepes Inscription E3,” Prometheus 27:1 (2002) 97-111; “Aristotle’s Hymn to Virtue”(trans.) in Athens: From the Classical Period to the Present Day: 5th century B. C. – A. D. 2000 (Athens: Kotinos, 2002) 128; “Homer: The Song of the Sirens,” American Poetry Review, 31, 6 (November/December 2002) 45; “Lucretius' Honeyed Muse: The History and meaning of a Simile” Mélanges offerts à Mayotte Bollack: Le jardin romain. Épicurisme et poésie à Rome (Villeneuve d'Ascq, Presses de l'Université Charles-de-Gaulle, Lille, 2003) 3:183-96 ; Selections from “The Poetry of Greece,” The Charioteer: An Annual Review of Modern Greek Culture 39/40 (2000-2002 [2003]) 87-105; “The Trial of Socrates at Herculaneum,” in Atti del Colloquio Internazionale: I Papiri Ercolanesi e la Storia della Filosofia antica, Naples October 2002, Chronache Ercolanesi (2003) 33; “Vergil's Farewell to Education (Catelepton 5) and Epicurus' Letter to Pythocles,” in Vergil, Philodemus, and The Augustans, ed. David Armstrong, Jeffrey Fish, Patricia A. Johnson, and Marilyn B. Skinner (Austin: U. of Texas Press, 2004) 25-36; Translation of George Seferis’ “Delphi,” Arion, N. S. 12:3 (2005) 1-15; “Dialogue and Dialectic” in Scribner’s New Dictionary of the History of Ideas (Waterville, Maine: Scribner’s, 2005) 574-6; The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, trans. Martin Hammond (intro.) (London: Penguin Books, 2006); “The Comic Poet of Plato’s Symposium,” in Festschrift for John Anton in Honor of his 85th Birthday, Skepsis 25 (2006) 73-81; “The Hangover of Plato’s Symposium in Renaissance Italy: from Bruni (1435) to Castiglione (1538),” in Plato’s SymposiumIssues in Interpretation and Reception, ed. James Lesher, Debra Nail, and Frisbee Sheffield, Hellenic Studies 22 (Cambridge, MA: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard U. Press, 2006) 341-59; “The Islands of the Odyssey,” in Mapping the MediterraneanJournal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 37:1 (2007) 141-61; “Plato Philomythos,” Chapter 6 in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology, ed. Roger Woodard (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2007) 210-36; “The Philosophical Writings of Demetrius of Laconia,” “The Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes of Oenoanda: New Discoveries 1969-83,” and “A Partial Census of Known or Suspected Epicureans: 100 BC -200 AD,” in Greek and Roman Philosophy 100 BC to 200 AD, ed. Richard Sorabji and Robert W. Sharples, BICS Supplement 94, 2 vols. (London 2007) 1:207-11, 283-91 and 206 & 2:639-43; “l’Épicurisme: école et tradition,” trans. Claudine Tiercelin, in Lire Épicure et les épicuriens, ed. Alain Gigandet and Jean-Marie Morel (Paris 2007) 11-27; Reprint and modification of 1976, “The Sources of Lucretius' Inspiration,” Études sur l'epicurisme antique, Cahiers de Philologie I, ed. Jean Bollack and André Laks (Lille, 2007) 203-27, repr. as Chapter 8 of Paradosis and Survival, 1998, and with slight revisions as Chapter 1 of Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Lucretius, ed. Monica M. Gal(Oxford: Oxford U. Press, 2007); “Archilochos of Paros: Cult and Image,” Paros IIArchilochos and his Age, (Athens, 2008) 249-258; “The Survival of Apollo: From Dante’s Buono Apollo to Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne,” in Apolline Politics and Poetics, ed. L. Athanassakis, R. Martin and J. Miller (Athens, 2009) 381-400; “The Athenian Garden,” Chapter 1 of The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, ed. James Warren (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2009) 9-28; “Marcus Aurelius: The Empire over Himself,” Chapter 3 of The Blackwell’s Companion to The Fall of the Roman EmpireFilm and History, ed. Martin M. Winkler (Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) 89-101; “Light on Marble: Greece in the Early Poetry of George Seferis,” in AntiphilesisFestschrift for Professor John Th. Papademitriou, ed. Eleni Karamalengou and Eugenia Makrygianni (Stuttgart: Fritz Steiner, 2009) 575-84; “Euripides’ Panathenaia,” in Studies in Honor of Professor Gregory Sifakis,” ed. Stavros Tsitsiridis (Heraclea: U. of Crete Press, 2010) 89-97; “Socrates, Palamedes and the Trials of Philosophy,” in When Worlds Elide, ed. Karen Bassi and J. Peter Euben (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2010) 331-44; Entries in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, in seven volumes (ed. Michael Gagarin, New York: Oxford U. Press, 2010): “Autochthony” (1.348-349), “Dante” (2.358-359), “Heroes: The Hero Cult of the Greek Philosophers” (3.427), and “Reincarnation” (6.88-89); “Greece in 1963,” Akoue: Publications of the American School in Athens (Spring 2010) 26; “An Anatomy of Platonic Quotation,” in Il quinto secolo: Studi di filosofia antiqua in onore di Livio Rossetti, ed Stefania Gambini and Flavia Maccacci (Perugia: Aguaplana, 2010) 327-338; “Cavafy’s Greece,” in Imagination and Logos: Essay’s on C. P. Cavafy, ed. Panagiotis Roilos (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 2010) 273-83; “Greek Poets and Strangers: A Memoir,” Arion, Third Series 18.3 (2011) 123-45; “Lucretius, Venus, Cybele, Love, the Gods,” Prometheus37 (2011) 153-62; “Sentenced to Reed,” in Thinking ReedCentennial  Essays by Graduates of Reed College, ed. Roger Porter & Robert Reynolds (Portland, OR: Reed College, 2011) 105-13; “Sappho, Selanna, and the Poetry of the Night,” Giornale Italiano di Philologia 2: N.S. 1-2 (2011) 3-11; Entries in the Wiley-Blackwell The Homer Encyclopedia, ed. Margalit Finkelberg (2011): “Plato” (2:672-5), “Utopias” (3:916-18); “In the Wake of Atlantis: Continuators of Plato’s Atlantikos Logos from Theopompos to Plutarch” & “Oinoanda: A Memoir for Angelo Casanova,” in HarmoniaScritti di Filologia Classica in onore di Angelo Casanova (Florence: Florence U. Press, 2012) 233-48; “Empedocles in Panopolis and Delphi,” The Presocratics and PlatoFestschrift at Delphi in Honor of Charles Kahn, ed. Richard Patterson, Vasilis Karasmanis & Arnold Hermann (Las Vegas, NV: Parmenides Publishing, 2013) 59-77; “Bernard MacGregor Walker Knox,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ((2013) (online); “Lesbian Armour: Alcaeus fr. 140 Voigt,” Prometheus39 (2013) 18-24; “Some Verse Epistles of Catullus for Georg Luck,” Giornale Italiano di Filologia 65 (2013) 209-20; “Phaedrus on the Lido: Tod in Venedig,” Arion 21.1 (Spring/Summer, 2013) 63-76; “From Heinrich Heine: The Gods in Exile,” Arion 21.1 (Spring/Summer, 2013) 193-202; “The Metamorphosis of Ovid in Dante’s Divine Comedy,” Chapter 12 of A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid, ed John Miller & Carole Newlands (Chichester, UK, & Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); “Dante’s Parnassus: Raphael’s Parnaso,” Arion 22.2 (Fall 2014) 3-32; “Lucian’s Philosophical Island” in The Ancient Novel and the frontiers of Genre ed. Marilla P. Futre Pinheiro, Gareth Schmeling & Edmund P. Cueva (Havertown: Barkhuis, 2014) 3-10; “Athena, Daphne,” Arion 23.2 (Fall 2015) 147-8.

    FestschriftEuphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Philosophy, History, and Literature in Memory of Diskin Clay, ed. Peter Burian,Jenny Strauss Clay, & Gregson Davis (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020)

  • Sources:

    Papers: Diskin Clay Papers, Perkins Library, Duke University.

  • Author: Ignotus / a