• Date of Birth: April 14, 1915
  • Born City: Seattle
  • Born State/Country: WA
  • Parents: Clinton Cailey & Hazel Elvira Carr G.
  • Date of Death: March 16, 1990
  • Death City: Princeton
  • Death State/Country: NJ
  • Married: Elizabeth Holzworth, 6 Sept. 1941.
  • Education:

    B.A. San Jose State Coll., 1935; M.A. Stanford, 1936; Ph.D. Yale, 1940.

  • Dissertation:

    “The Roman Garrison of Dura” (Yale, 1940).

  • Professional Experience:

    Instr. class. Yale, 1940-1, 1945-7; asst. prof. Wells Coll., 1947-9; asst. prof, to prof. hist. & class. U. Iowa, 1949-61; prof. hist. U. Oregon, 1961-2; prof. Gk. & Lat. Columbia, 1962-5; curator papyri, 1970-81; adj. prof. 1970-85; vis. lctr. Princeton, 1972-5; mem. IAS, 1958-9, 1963-4; prof. Sch. Hist. Stud., 1965-85; Guggenheim fell. 1955-6; Sather lctr. 1979.

  • Publications:

    “The Dux Ripae at Dura,” TAPA 72 (1941) 157-75; “Milites Calgati,” TAPA 77 (1946) 183-91; “Some Latin Military Papyri from Dura, I, Texts Relating to Cavalry Horses, II. The Acta Diurna,” YCS 11 (1950) 169-252; “Scylla and Sin,” PhQ 29 (1950) 345-7; “Paganus in BGU 696,” AJP 73 (1952) 75-8; “The Minimum Subject to the vicesima hereditatum,” ibid., 397-405; “Notes on PSI 1307 and 1308,” CP 47 (1952) 29-31; “The Praefects in Pap. Dura Inv. 3 verso,” CP 47 (1952) 229-30; “Ostr. Skeat II,” TAPA 83 (1952) 51-5; “Inscriptions from Dura-Europos,” with R. N. Frye, H. Ingholt, & C. B. Welles, YCS 14 (1955) 127-213; “The Roman Military Feriale,” HThR 47 (1954) 183-96; “The Pro Caelio in St. Jerome's Letters,” HThR 46 (1953) 103-7; “P. Mich. 163,” CP 51 (1956) 96-8; “The Veterans as Praefectus Castrorum of the II Traiana in A.D. 157,” AJP 77 (1956) 359-75; “Tribonius Gallus and the Decii, III et I cos.,” Studi in onore di A. Calderini e R. Paribeni (Milan, 1956) 1:305-11; “Enrollment in the Roman Imperial Army,” Symbolae R. Taubenschlag dedicatae = Eos 48 (1956) II: 207-16; The Excavations at Dura-Europos. Final Report, VIII, 1 The Synagogue (New Haven, 1956); “The Governors of Syria Coele from Severus to Diocletian,” AJP 79 (1958) 225-42; “The Appointment of Auxiliary Centurions (P. Mich. 164),” TAPA 88 (1957) 155-68; “Two Latin Letters from Dura-Europos of A.D. 221,” EPap 8 (1957) 49-58; The Excavations at Dura-Europos. Final Report, V, 1; The Parchments and Papyri, ed. with C. B. Welles, R. O. Fink, ed. A. Perkins (New Haven, 1959); “Ala Agrippiana and Archistator,” CP 56 (1961) 100-3; “The Plague under Marcus Aurelius,” AJP 82 (1961) 225-51; “Egyptian Duces under Gordian,” CE 36 (1961) 386-92; “The Moesian Pridianum,” Hommages à A. Grenier (Brussels-Berchem, 1962) 747-56; “Severan Titles and an Inscription from Puteoli,” CP 58 (1963) 26-9; “Valerius Titanianus,” Mnemosyne 17 (1964) 293-9; “The Romanization of the Greek East: The Role of the Army,” BASP 2 (1965) 65-73; “Dura Rosters and the Constitutio Antoniniana,” Historia 14 (1965) 74-92; “Leather Scrolls from Alexandria,” ASPap 1 (1966) 113-20; “Titus in Julian's Caesares,” AJP 88 (1967) 203-8; “The Desposita of an Auxiliary Soldier (P. Columbia inv. 325),” BJ 167 (1967) 233-43; “P. Wisconsin 14,” BASP 5 (1968) 93-8; “A Legionary Veteran and His Family,” BASP 8 (1971) 39-44; “A Diocletianic Inscription from Ayasofya and Imperial Military Supernomina,” ZPE 15 (1974) 183-91; “Notes on Latin Texts from Egypt,” Hommages à C. Preaux (Brussels, 1975) 766-74; “Three Ostraca from Latopolis,” BASP 13 (1976) 55-61; “Some Roman Elements in Roman Egypt,” ICS 3 (1978) 115-31; “Gibbon and the Roman Army,” Gibbon et Rome à la lumière de I'historiographie moderne (Geneva, 1977) 137-54; “Notes on a New Latin Text, P. Vindob. L 135,” ZPE 41 (1981) 277-80; Roman Army Papers, Mavors. Roman Army Researches II (Amsterdam, 1986); “Addenda to Bibliography of M. I. Rostovtzeff,” Historia 36 (1987) 1-8; “M. I. Rostovtzeff,” DAB Suppl. 5:594-6.

  • Notes:

    Born in the Far West, Gilliam felt allegiance only to the East Coast, if not to England; he collected first editions of the works of Jane Austen. From a B.A. at San Jose State College, he moved rapidly upward (Stanford) and eastward, writing a dissertation with Michael Rostovtzeff at Yale. His teaching career followed a similar pattern: from Iowa to Columbia to the Institute for Advanced Study, with a brief interlude at the University of Oregon (“too much rain” was his comment). Considered by Arthur Darby Nock as the man most able to control the details of the history of the Roman army, Gilliam was finally defeated by detail, unable to write the book on the Roman army he had long anticipated, long promised, despite having freed himself of his teaching duties at Columbia and having entered into the single-minded life of the scholar at the Institute. He had the historian's dry neutrality and yet was in his exceedingly droll, understated, and ironic way one of the wittiest lecturers an undergraduate would ever be privileged to hear.

  • Sources:

    NYTimes (18 Mar. 1990) 32; WhWh 1988-9:1131.

  • Author: Charles R. Beye