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Nota Bene Vol. 12 No. 2 SPECIAL MEMORIAL ISSUE Winter 2007 In Memoriam n the recent past, Harvard’s Department of the Classics has suffered several deaths among its faculty and emeriti. To consider only the Pope Professor- ship of the Latin Language and Literature, we have had to cope—within Iless than four years (by a single day)—with the departure of no fewer than four individuals whose incumbency in the chair spanned continuously more than four decades: Mason Hammond (1950-1973, died October 13, 2002), Herbert Bloch (1973-1982, died September 6, 2006), David Roy Shackleton Bailey (1982-1988, died November 28, 2005), and Wendell Vernon Clausen (1988-1993, died Octo- ber 12, 2006). In contemplating these losses, we decided for two main reasons to innovate by publishing a memorial issue of Nota Bene, our departmental newsletter, that would gather obituaries, remarks made at memorial services, and other related materials. One of the two reasons is that Classics is the cornerstone of the humanities, as the artes humaniores have come to be known. An essential component of these “arts” is humaneness, and nothing makes a person suffer more acutely the related experience of humbling humanness than to experience the absence when a dear one dies. Our thoughts, our empathies, go out to the families and friends of those commemorated here. Another motivation in assembling these texts is that Classics, for all its stupen- dous interdisciplinarity and all the ever-changing diversity of approaches that it elicits and requires, remains (as it began) a field in which texts and traditions are foundational. So that those in the future who are interested, as well as those right now who care deeply and immediately, may remember the members of our com- munity we have lost, we offer the following pages. The issue focuses upon those who have passed away in this fall semester of 2006, namely: Herbert Bloch; Wendell Clausen and Margaret Clausen; and Rodney Dennis, retired curator of manuscripts in Houghton Library and enthusiastic participant in our community. Jan Ziolkowski, Chair CONTENTS: Herbert Bloch .......................................................................2-9 Wendell and Margaret Clausen ......................................10-17 Rodney Dennis ..................................................................18-23 HERBERT BLOCH ancient history, classical philology, completed in 9 BCE) a centerpiece and archaeology at the University of a city tour. At the last moment the of Berlin (1930-1933), which he left organizers, realizing that their at- for Rome. Owing to the vicissitudes tempted translation of the exhibition of fate, his brother Egon remained in catalog into German was a botch, Germany and died in the Holocaust. cast around for a person qualified Bloch received his doctoral degree to redo it. They were told that there in Roman History in 1935 and the was someone who could, but he was Diploma di perfezionamento in 1937 Jewish. Nonetheless, they asked from the University of Rome, where Bloch, who agreed and stayed up he was a student of the eminent his- two nights to produce a new ver- torian Arnaldo Momigliano. Though sion. Hitler so liked the exhibit that Momigliano directed Bloch’s thesis he made a second, unscheduled on the religious policy of Commo- visit. Bloch gave as his reason for dus (161-192 CE: Roman emperor, translating the catalog that he had to 180-192), Momigliano professed choose between helping the country that there was nothing he could that had taken him in or refusing out teach his student. In 1938 Bloch of dislike for the country that had remained in Italy, serving as a mem- driven him out. ber of the staff of the excavations in Owing to the pressures of the erbert Bloch, Pope Profes- Ostia in 1938. During these years he anti-Semitic laws enacted in late sor of the Latin Language not only honed his skills as a scholar 1938, Bloch was soon no longer and Literature, Emeritus, but also developed a facility in Ital- able to remain in the country that Hdied on September 6, 2006, in ian that remained with him his entire had sheltered him initially. In 1939 Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was life. Because of his fluency, he used he emigrated to the United States. ninety-five years of age. A native of to go and translate at sight articles in George Hanfmann (1911-1986), Germany, he was born in Berlin on German for the great Italian histori- the art historian and archaeologist August 18, 1911. He was the eldest an Gaetano de Sanctis (1870-1957), at Harvard who had been a student of two sons of Ludwig Bloch, who after which they would discuss the with him in Berlin, played a role became a director of the Dresdner contents together. in securing him a connection with Bank in Berlin, and Alice Gut- Bloch’s command of ancient his- the University. Bloch was to have man, the bank owner’s daughter. tory, Italian, and German resulted been in the first group of fellows at Ludwig’s father was a family doctor in one particularly memorable Dumbarton Oaks, one of Harvard’s in Pilsen (now in the Czech Repub- experience in 1938. When Adolf centers in Washington, DC. At the lic), so beloved of his patients that Hitler paid a German state visit as time John Finley (1904-1995) was once, when he lay ill, they packed chancellor to Rome in March of that acting chair of the Department of the cobblestones outside his house year, Benito Mussolini made a stop the Classics. When Carl Newell with straw to muffle the sound of at the reconstructed Ara Pacis (a Jackson, Eliot Professor of Greek, horses and carriages. Bloch studied monumental altar of peace that was fell ill, Finley hired Bloch to take AUGUST 18, 1911 2 OBITUARY over his teaching. It was arranged At Harvard Bloch rose swiftly famous corpus of Latin inscriptions. for Bloch to defer his junior fellow- through the ranks, as an instructor Another longstanding commitment ship in Washington by a year. for one year (1941-1942), a faculty of his was to what used to be labeled In retrospect the war years were instructor for four (1942-1946), and “the final pagan revival in the West” the beginning of unbroken stability an assistant professor for one (1946- in the late fourth century. in Bloch’s life, since from 1941 to 1947), before being tenured as an Among medievalists he is known 1982 he taught at Harvard Univer- associate professor (1947-1953). best for many books and articles sity. At the same time it must be He was a professor for twenty years on Monte Cassino. His crowning acknowledged that he remained (1953-1973), after which he held achievement was the three volumes stateless through the end of the war, the Pope Professorship of the Latin of Monte Cassino in the Middle when he had to go to Montreal to Language and Literature. Ages, which appeared in 1986. This secure his citizenship papers. He His teaching and research interests opus, which is exemplary in bring- was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in involved Greek and Roman histo- ing together evidence from histori- 1946. riography, Latin epigraphy, Roman cal texts with insights gleaned from His gratitude to the United States archaeology (especially architec- works of art, was awarded the Prae- for having given him a haven ture), medieval history, and medi- mium Urbis in Rome in 1987 and was great. Equally strong was his eval Latin literature. Through his the Haskins Medal of the Medieval resistance to any whiff of intoler- courses he advanced medieval stud- Academy in 1988. Although all this ance or persecution. In 1954, he ies in particular, by inspiring a cadre work is uniquely his own, Bloch’s was approached by the Institute for of students who have now become Monte Cassino oeuvre also bears Advanced Study in Princeton about eminent in their own right. witness to the extraordinary support the possibility of a permanent posi- In all the areas already mentioned of his second wife, Ellen, who not tion there, but decided against it at he made a major impact in his only drove him to many of the out- least partly because he was horrified scholarship. Among his most endur- of-the-way places in Italy he needed that the chairman of the board of ing contributions to Classics are to visit but also took many of the trustees of the Institute testified in his works on Roman brick-stamps, photographs with which the three Washington against J. Robert Op- which enable archaeologists and volumes are illustrated. penheimer (1904-1967). In contrast, ancient historians to date buildings Ten years later, well into his Nathan Pusey (1907-2001), recently and trace economic ties related to eighties, Bloch published The Atina appointed president of Harvard their construction by matching the Dossier of Peter the Deacon of (1953-1971), had stood up to Sena- brick-stamps to their brickyards of Monte Cassino. A Hagiographical tor Joseph McCarthy. Fifteen years origin. One of his earliest interests, Romance of the Twelfth Century, in later (1969), Bloch himself took a Roman brick-stamps were an area the series Studi e Testi 346 (1998). stand by delivering a speech to the he revisited periodically during his Peter the Deacon became a central Faculty of Arts and Sciences against long and productive career: his stud- figure in Bloch’s investigations into the students who had taken over ies of 1936-1938 were assembled the rise of the Benedictine Abbey of University Hall. He regarded them as a book in 1948 (which received Monte Cassino. Around 600, when as being similar to the Nazi youths a second edition in 1968) and have there was no way of easily and he had seen early in his life.