All Scholars
HARMON, Austin Morris
- Date of Birth: September 28, 1878
- Born City: Rockport
- Born State/Country: NY
- Parents: George B. & Catharine Crowe H.
- Date of Death: June 29, 1950
- Death City: Chebeague Island
- Death State/Country: ME
- Married: Grace Newell, 19 Dec. 1907.
- Education:
B.A. Williams, 1902; LL.D., 1927; M.A. Yale, 1903; Ph.D., 1908; study at Göttingen, 1903-4.
- Dissertation:
“The Clausula in Ammianus Marcellinus” (Yale, 1908); printed Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, Transactions 16 (1911) 117-245.
- Professional Experience:
Fell. ASCSR, 1903-6; prof. Gk. & Lat. Yale, 1916-23; Hillhouse prof. Gk., 1923-34; Lampson prof. Gk., 1934-45; ed. YCS vols. 1-5, 1928-35, & with others vols. 6-8, 1939-42; pres. CANE, 1937-8; pres. APA, 1938-9; fellow, AAAS.
- Publications:
“Consucidus (Miles Gloriosus 787),” Hermes 45 (1910) 461-3; “Protesilaudamia Laevi,” AJP 33 (1912) 186-94; Lucian (trans.), LCL, vol. 1 (New York & London, 1913); vol. 2 (1915); vol. 3 (1921); vol. 4 (1925); vol. 5 (1936); “The Poet κατ᾿ἐξοχήν,” CP 18 (1923) 35-47; “An Emendation in Lucian's Syrian Goddess,” CP 19 (1924) 72-4; “Greek Vases in the Museum of the American Academy in Rome,” AAR, Memoirs 10 (1932) 103-27; “The Scene of the Persians of Aeschylus,” TAPA 63 (1932) 7-19; “Egyptian Property Returns,” YCS 4 (1934) 135-230.
- Notes:
Austin Morris Harmon has a distinction few if any classicists can match: while he was a preceptor in Greek at Princeton he published two volumes of the Loeb edition of Lucian. With the appearance of the first volume in 1913, it was apparent that here was a master translator and editor, perfectly equipped to turn the Greek idiom of his author into comparable English idiom, while preserving the grammatical niceties of both languages. As volume after volume appeared, even Paul Shorey, whose critical proclivities were well known—and feared—found little to criticize but much to praise. After he accepted Yale's offer of a professorship in Greek, Harmon continued his translation of Lucian to the exclusion of most other scholarly research, but finished only five of the projected volumes before his retirement in 1945. His obvious editorial ability led him to edit Yale Classical Studies for a number of years, and his scholarship brought him the presidency of the APA. In the words of Edmund T. Silk, “He was above all the scholar's scholar and friend, seeming to embody learning, justice, and taste, whom one never rashly consulted and never consulted in vain.” He was a “golfer of no mean stature” and an outdoorsman with a love of guns and the sea.
- Sources:
Edmund T. Silk, “Memorial Minute,” PAPA 80 (1950) xv-xvi.
- Author: John Francis Latimer