All Scholars

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.