• Date of Birth: March 12, 1904
  • Born City: Stamford
  • Born State/Country: CT
  • Parents: Edward Everett & Ruth Thompson R.
  • Date of Death: February 04, 1974
  • Death City: Baltimore
  • Death State/Country: MD
  • Married: Tanya Ramm, 21 Feb. 1931.
  • Education:

    A.B. Yale, 1926; study at AAR, 1926-7; Ph.D., 1933; Litt. D. U. of South, 1958.

  • Dissertation:

    "The Oriental 'Numeri' of the Roman Army" (Yale, 1933)

  • Professional Experience:

    Instr. class. Yale, 1931-5; asst. prof. Lat. Yale, 1935-40; prof. Lat. Johns Hopkins, 1940-71; chair dept. class., 1946-71; dir. summ. sess. AAR, 1937-9, 1947-8; 1950-1; prof.-in-chge. Sch. class, stud., 1961-3; sr. asst. excavations Dura-Europos, Syria, 1929-31; ed. AJP, 1946-71; vis. dept. class. Harvard, 1965-6; pres. AIA, 1953-6; Louise Taft Semple lctr. U. Cincinnati, 1964; Martin lctr. Oberlin, 1964-5; pres. AAR, 1972-3; vis. Mellon prof, class. U. Pittsburgh, 1972.

  • Publications:

    "Numerus," RE XVII (1937) 1327-41, 2537-54; "The Honesta Missio from the Numeri of the Roman Imperial Army," YCS 6 (1939) 71-108; "The Forum and Funeral Imagines of Augustus," MAAR 17 (1940) 131-43; "Vergil and the Forum of Augustus," AJP 62 (1941) 261-76; J. Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome (ed. of translation) (London 1941); "The Original Form of Naevius' Bellum Punicum," AJP 68 (1947) 21-46; "The 'Campanian' Origin of Cn. Naevius and Its Literary Attestation," MAAR 19 (1949) 15-34; "The 'Free Citizens' in Horace Odes 3.5," Studies Robinson, 2:663-77; "The Gladiator Petraites and the Date of the Satyricon," TAPA 89 (1958) 14-24; Rome in the Augustan Age (Norman, OK, 1962); Ammianus Marcellinus, Soldier-Historian of the Late Roman Empire, in Semple Lectures, First Series (Cincinnati, 1964), 261-313; "A Home for the Muses," Archaeology 19 (1966) 76-83; "The Ancient Evidence of the Helen Episode in Aeneid II," Studies Caplan, 210-21.

  • Notes:

    Henry Thompson Rowell was, for a quarter-century, editor of the American Journal of Philology and one of the most influential figures in the work of the American Academy in Rome. As chairman of the Department of Classics at the Johns Hopkins University for the same length of time, he played a major role in the education of generations of students, many of whom became significant scholars themselves. He assisted Rostovtzeff at Dura-Europos and was called to Johns Hopkins in 1940 as successor to Tenney Frank. This brief chronological outline of Rowell's academic career gives no indication of the variety of his interests and activities and the impact he had on a number of institutions and organizations. Soon after he took up his post at the Hopkins, the United States found itself at war; Rowell served in Army Military Government, with duty overseas in Italy. He was Chief of the Education Division of the Allied Control Commission, and his vast knowledge of Italy helped to reestablish the University of Rome as a major institution of learning. He reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and was honored by the Italian government with the order of Knight Officer of the Crown of Italy in 1945. His scholarly interests included Latin literature, particularly early Latin and the Augustan poets, Roman monuments and topography and their relationship with literature, the Roman army, and Ammianus Marcellinus.

  • Sources:

    James W. Poultney, CW 67 (1973-74) 361-62; WhAm 6:354.

  • Author: Herbert W. Benario