Colin Austin

Colin François Lloyd Austin FBA (born July 26, 1941 in Melbourne , † August 13, 2010 in Cambridge ) was a British classical philologist and papyrologist .

life and work

Colin Austin, the son of the Romanist Lloyd Austin (1915–1994) and his wife Jeanne-Françoise Guérin, grew up in France with his mother's family while his father served in World War II. Colin Austin attended the Lycée Lakanal in Paris and then, when his father became professor of French literature at the University of Manchester (1956), the grammar school there. He then studied at Jesus College at the University of Cambridge and at Christ Church (Oxford) . There he met the Graecist Eduard Fraenkel know and turned to Greek comedy under the influence of Hugh Lloyd-Jones . With Peter J. Parsons he acquired knowledge in papyrology . With an edition of the Thesmophoriazusen by Aristophanes , Austin was named D.Phil in 1965. PhD .

In 1965 Austin received a position as Research Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Trinity Hall (Cambridge). The preoccupation with Greek literature and its papyrus finds accompanied him throughout his life. He edited the Euripides tragedy Erechtheus (1967) and Menander comedies Aspis and Samia (1969–1970); he edited the Codex Bodmer together with Rodolphe Kasser . In 1983 the British Academy made him a Fellow. In 1998 he was appointed Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge. As Director of Studies he joined in 2005 to retire, in 2008 he became professor emeritus .

Austin edited the fragment collection Poetae Comici Graeci together with Rudolf Kassel . From 1983 to 2001 he was in charge of eight volumes of the company, which has since formed the basis for the scientific study of Greek comedy. He published a commentary on the Thesmophoriazusen , based on his dissertation, in 2004 together with S. Douglas Olson . In the 1990s he worked with Guido Bastianini on the annotated edition of the Poseidippos epigrams, which became famous through a papyrus find. The basic edition appeared in 2001, an editio minor in 2002.

Austin worked on a new critical edition of the Menander comedies until his death. After a long illness, he died of cancer at the age of 69.

Fonts (selection)

• De nouveaux fragments de l'Erechthée d'Euripide . In: Recherches de Papyrologie 4 (1967), pp. 11-67
• Nova fragmenta Euripidea in papyris reperta . Berlin 1968 ( Small texts for lectures and exercises 187)
• Menandre: La Samienne. Publié par Rodolphe Kasser avec la collaboration de Colin Austin . Cologny 1969
• Menandri Aspis et Samia. T. 1: Textus (cum apparatu critico) et indices . Berlin 1969
• Menandri Aspis et Samia. T. 2: Subsidia interpretationis . Berlin 1970
• Comicorum Graecorum fragmenta in papyris reperta . Berlin 1973
• Posidippo di Pella: Epigrammi . Milan 2001 ( Papiri dell'Università degli studi di Milano 8)
• Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia . Milan 2002
• Aristophanes: Thesmophoriazusae. Edited with introduction and commentary by Colin Austin and S. Douglas Olson. Oxford 2004
• Menander. Eleven Plays . Cambridge 2013

Web links

• Obituary by Richard Hunter in the Guardian , Sept. 6, 2010
• Obituary by Eric Handley in The Independent , September 13, 2010
• Address by Guido Bastianini, Professor Colin Austin Memorial Service, March 12, 2011 (DOC file, 55 kB)