Charles Forster Smith

Charles Forster Smith (born June 30, 1852 in Abbeville County , South Carolina , † August 3, 1931 in Racine , Wisconsin ) was an American classical philologist who was particularly prominent as a Thucydides researcher.

Life

Charles Forster Smith, the son of pastor James F. Smith and his wife Julia Forster Smith, studied at Wofford College ( A. B. 1872), at Harvard University and then from 1874 to 1875 at the universities in Leipzig and Berlin . He then taught as a professor of Classical and German Philology at Wofford College (1875–1879) and deepened his studies again in Leipzig, where in 1881 he completed a doctoral thesis in English. phil. received his doctorate .

After completing his doctorate, Smith worked at various universities in the USA: from 1881 as professor of Latin and Greek at Williams College , from 1882 as professor of modern foreign languages ​​at Vanderbilt University, and from 1884 as professor of Greek (from 1894 of all classical philology ) at the University of Wisconsin – Madison . He was a longtime board member of the American Philological Association (1902/03 president) and 1905/06 co-editor of The Classical Journal . In 1917 he retired, but continued to be active in science and journalism. In 1919 his colleagues at the University of Wisconsin published a commemorative publication in his honor.

In his research, Smith dealt with both ancient languages ​​and modern language phenomena (for example with the dialect of the southern states ). Throughout his life, he strove to improve university studies in the USA, which during his own studies only allowed higher degrees in a few places. Smith's research focus was the Greek historian Thucydides . Smith published scientific essays, selected editions and finally a bilingual (Greek-English) edition in the Loeb Classical Library (1919–1923), which remained in use for a long time.

Fonts (selection)

• A Study of Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes, with Especial Reference to the Sources . Leipzig 1881 (dissertation)
• Thucydides Book VII . Boston 1886
• Thucydides Book III . Boston 1894
• with Campbell Bonner : Xenophon's Anabasis. The First Four Books . New York 1905
• Greek Literature . New York 1912
• Charles Kendall Adams: a life sketch . Madison 1924

Translations

• Gustav Hertzberg : Ancient Greece . Philadelphia / New York 1902
• Thucydides . 4 volumes, London / New York 1919–1923 ( Loeb Classical Library )

literature

• Classical Studies in Honor of Charles Forster Smith . Madison 1919
• Ward W. Briggs : Smith, Charles Forster . In: Ward W. Briggs (Ed.): Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists . Westport, CT / London: Greenwood Press 1994, ISBN 978-0-313-24560-2 , pp. 593f.

Web links

• Entry on Charles Forster Smith in the Database of Classical Scholars, written by Ward W. Briggs (English)
• Charles Forster Smith in the database of Find a Grave (English)