• Date of Birth: May 15, 1865
  • Born City: Winchester
  • Born State/Country: IL
  • Parents: Rev. William A. & Ada M. French H.
  • Date of Death: December 18, 1963
  • Death City: New Haven
  • Death State/Country: CT
  • Married: Cornelia Cooke, 1894; Marion Vaux, 30 Dec. 1897.
  • Education:

    Beloit Coll., 1883-5; A.B. Johns Hopkins, 1887; study at Bonn & Berlin, 1888-9; L.H.D. Western Reserve U., 1902; Beloit (WI) Coll., 1933; A.M. Yale, 1908; LL.D. Colorado Coll., 1913; Litt.D., Yale, 1953.

  • Professional Experience:

    Prof. Lat., Colorado Coll., 1889-91; U. Wisconsin, 1891-6; U. Chicago, 1897-1907; prof. Gk. & Lat. lit. Yale, 1907-9; Lampson prof. Lat. & Gk. lit., 1909-33; acting dir. ASCSR, 1913-4; dir., 1919-20; Sather prof., 1921-2; lctr. class, lit. Harvard, 1931-2; pres. APA, 1935-6; member, AAAS.

  • Publications:

    “On the Authenticity of the Commentariolum Petitionis of Quintus Cicero,” AJP 13 (1892) 211-12; “The Dramatic Satura and the Old Comedy at Rome,” AJP 15 (1894) 1-30; “Are the Letters of Horace Satires?,” AJP 18 (1897) 313-24; “A Pre-Variorum Chapter of Roman Literary History,” AJP 19 (18£8) 285-311; comments in AJP 20 (1899) 198-210 on C. E. Bennett's article, “What Was Ictus in Latin Prosody?,” in AJP 19 (1898) 361-83; Hendrickson's comments answered by Bennett in AJP 20 (1899) 412-28, answered by Hendrickson in ibid., 429-34; “Hor. Serm. 1.4: A Protest and a Programme,” AJP 21 (1900) 121-42; “The Literary form of Hor. Serm. 1.6,” AJP 23 (1902) 388-99; “The Proconsulate of Julius Agricola in Relation to History and to Encomium,” U. Chicago Decennial Pubs. 6:29-59; “The Origin and Meaning of Characters of Style,” AJP 26 (1905) 249-90; “The De Analogic of Julius Caesar: Its Occasion, Nature, and Date, with Additional Fragments,” CP 1 (1906) 97-120; “Literary Sources in Cicero's Brutus and the Technique of Citation in Dialogue,” AJP 27 (1906) 184-99; “Accentual Clausulae in Greek Prose of the First and Second Centuries of Our Era,” AJP 29 (1908) 280-302; “Satura—The Genesis of a Literary Form,” CP 6 (1911) 129-43; “Horace and Valerius Cato I,” CP 11 (1916) 249-69; II, CP 12 (1917) 77-92; III, CP 12 (1917) 329-50; The Life of Agricola and the Germanla by Cornelius Tacitus, rev. Katharine Allen and Hendrickson (Boston, 1913); “Archilochus and the Victims of His Iambics,” AJP 46 (1925) 101-37; “Satura Tota Nostra Est,” CP 22 (1927) 46-60; “The First Satire of Persius,” CP 23 (1928) 97-118; “The Third Satire of Per-sius,” CP 23 (1928) 332-42; “Brutus De Virtute,” AJP 60 (1939) 401-13; Cicero's Brutus, LCL (Cambridge & London, 1939; 5th impr., rev. 1962); “The So-Called Prelude to the Carmen Saeculare,” CP 48 (1953) 73-9.

  • Notes:

    George Lincoln Hendrickson is that rara avis among classicists who attained preeminence as a Latin scholar with no earned degree beyond the bachelor's. Following two semesters at Bonn under Buecheler and Usener, he studied in the summer semester of 1889 under Mommsen and Diels at Berlin and most likely would have stayed in Germany to complete the doctorate but for lung trouble caused by the damp climate in Berlin. He sought remedy in the mountain air of Colorado, and two years of teaching at Colorado College restored him to vigorous health, which he enjoyed for the rest of his long life.Although his favorite authors were Cicero and Horace, “His contributions could best be described,” his colleague Harry Hubbell said, “as the history of literature—rhetoric and its impact on form, the development of satire, the interrelation of Horace's Odes . . . the search for origins and the tracing of the proliferation of literary forms.” As another colleague (and former student) C. Bradford Welles said, “. . .he made a penetrating analysis of Roman literary tradition in Livy, showing its direct derivation from Aristotle and therefore its worthlessness as historical evidence, and then went on in a series of papers to fashion the understanding of Roman satire which prevails today” (1963). He gently corrected those with whose opinions he disagreed but “left them without a leg to stand on,” as witness the two papers in which he “kindly” but “firmly . . . demolished ... the eminent professor Charles E. Bennett's theory of quantitative rhythm.” His own method of reading Latin poetry was unique, hotly disputed, and not widely accepted. He read without elision and yet managed to retain the metrical pattern and rhythm. No one else could do it as well and most thought it useless to try.As a widower and senior fellow in the University, he lived in Branford College and continued to lead informal group discussions with students, to drive his car, to handle his boat, and to play golf (he made a hole-in-one at age 67!), and to read without glasses until a few months before his death, in his 99th year.

  • Sources:

    George Lincoln Hendrickson Nonagenarius May 15, 1955, published by His Friends (New Haven, 1955); Harry Hubbell, YCS 19 (1966) 3-4; NatCAB 47:578; C. Bradford Welles, PAPA 94 (1963) lx-lxi; WhAm 4:429.

  • Author: John Francis Latimer