North American Scholar

B.A. Wellesley, 1919; M.A. Columbia, 1921; study at AAR, 1925-6; Ph.D. U. Chicago, 1929.

Tchr. Walnut Hill Sch. (Natick, MA), 1921-5; head Lat. dept. Northampton (MA) Sch. Girls, 1926-7; instr. class. Wells Coll. (Aurora, NY), 1930-1; instr. to prof. Lat. Wellesley, 1931-63; chair Lat. dept., 1939-48; AAR fell., 1948-9; chair adv. counc, 1950; class, jury AAR fellowships, 1959-60; pres. APA, 1964-5.

"The Sources of Sicco Polenton's Scriptorum Illustrium Libri" (Chicago, 1929).

"The Biography of Cicero in a 1491 Edition of Plutarch's Lives," CP 26 (1931) 93-4; "Two Unreported Persius Mss.," CP 26 (1931) 284-301; "Diodorus Siculus in the Italian Renaissance," CP 27 (1932) 84; "A Fifteenth-century History of Latin Literature," Speculum 7 (1932) 239-48; "The Catalogues of the Princely and Papal Libraries of the Italian Renaissance," TAPA 64 (1933) 138-49; "The Basilica Argentaria," AJP 55 (1934) 74-6; "Notes on the Apparatus of Leo's Edition of Persius," TAPA 68 (1937) 123-8; "An Unreported Culex Manuscript," AJP 59 (1938) 85-9; "The Missing Folios of the Paris Florilegium 15155," CP 33 (1938) 188-97; "A Reconsideration of Roman Topography in the Historia Augusta," TAPA 70 (1939) 515-34;"Libraries of the Italian Renaissance," in The Medieval Library, ed. James W. Thompson (Chicago, 1939) 509-88; "Domitian's 'Midas Touch'," TAPA 73 (1942) 130-44; "A Fifteenth-Century Blue-Stocking," M&H 2 (1944) 106-11; The Monuments of Ancient Rome (Rome, 1950); "Another Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of the Germania," AJP 71 (1950) 225-38; "Housing Conditions in Ancient Rome," CO 30 (1952-3) 25-33; "A Postscript on Martino Filetico," M&H 8 (1954) 56-61; "Introduction to the Pseudo-Ovidian De Vetula," TAPA 88 (1957) 197-207; "Living Conditions in the Thirteenth Century as Reflected in the Pseudo-Ovidian De Vetula," Studies Ullman (1960) 96-103; The Pseudo-Ovidian De Vetula (Amsterdam, 1968).

Dorothy Robathan concentrated her scholarly energies on well-focused interests in palaeography and the history of classical texts, and in the topography and archaeology of Rome. Her work in manuscripts and in mediaeval and Renaissance studies, as well as in the classics, grew out of her training as a graduate student at the University of Chicago in the 1920s. For years she applied that training in numerous trips to European manuscript collections. Her passion for Rome, its monuments and inscriptions, began in her undergraduate days at Wellesley under the guidance of professors Alice Walton and Bertha Miller and flourished in her years at the American Academy in Rome.Wellesley College was another focus in Miss Robathan's life. Devoted alumna and longtime faculty member, she worked to strengthen the Department of Latin and the college's M.A. program. Her courses on Latin topography stimulated students to visit Rome; many postcards from alumnae, now in the departmental archives, report enthusiastic exploration of monuments known from Miss Robathan's courses. The addition of her library to the departmental collection greatly enhanced holdings in the areas of her research.

Mary Ann T. Natunewicz, Wellesley (Spring 1992) 28; Wellesley Coll. archives; WhAmW 1964-5: 855.