Benjamin Dean Meritt

Benjamin Dean Meritt FBA (born March 31, 1899 in Durham , North Carolina , † July 7, 1989 in Austin , Texas ) was an American classical philologist and epigraphist .

Life

Benjamin Dean Meritt was the older son of the classical philologist Arthur Herbert Meritt , who taught as a professor at Duke University . His younger brother was the linguist Herbert Dean Meritt (1904–1984).

Benjamin Dean Meritt studied at Hamilton College ( BA 1924) and then went to the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) for a year as a Locke Fellow . Here he deepened his studies of Greek epigraphy, to which he dedicated his life's work.

From 1923 to 1924 Meritt worked as a Greek lecturer at the University of Vermont and worked on his dissertation, with which he obtained a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1924. received his doctorate . After two years as a lecturer at Brown University and Princeton University, he was appointed Assistant Director of ASCSA in 1926 , with whom he remained associated throughout his life: from 1926 to 1969 he was a member of the governing committee of the ASCSA; he also attended her as an Annual Professor (1932/1933 and 1954/1955) and as a visiting professor (1935/1936 and 1969/1970).

From 1928 Meritt taught as an Associate Professor and Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan . In 1932 he was given a year off when he took over the management of Athens College in Greece. In 1933 he was appointed Francis White Professor of Greek at Johns Hopkins University . Just two years later he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as Professor of Greek Epigraphy at the School of Historical Studies . In 1935 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1938 to the American Philosophical Society .

Meritt spent his retirement (from 1969) at the University of Texas at Austin , where he was visiting professor from 1971 to 1972 and visiting researcher from 1973 until his death.

Services

Meritt was mainly concerned with the Greek epigraphy, the results of which he used for historical research. His focus was the history of Athens and Attica in the 5th century BC. At the ASCSA he supervised the publication of over 7000 inscriptions, most of which came from the Agora . As a result of his research, he published fundamental studies on the Attic tribute system and the Athenian calendar.

Meritt gained international recognition through his work as a researcher, lecturer and science organizer. He was president of the American Philological Association (1952/1953), honorary member of the Athens Archaeological Society , corresponding member of the British Academy and the German Archaeological Institute . For 1958/1959 he was invited to the University of California, Berkeley as Sather Professor . He received the Goodwin Award (1954), the Order of the Phoenix (Commander) and the Order of George I.

literature

• A Community of Scholars. The Institute for Advanced Study, Faculty and Members 1930–1980 . Princeton 1980, p. 24
• William H. Willis : Meritt, Benjamin Dean . In: Ward W. Briggs (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists . Greenwood Press, Westport, CT / London 1994, ISBN 0-313-24560-6 , pp. 404f.

Web links

• Entry on Benjamin Dean Meritt in the Database of Classical Scholars (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Member History: Benjamin D. Meritt. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 8, 2019 .