Francis Henry Sandbach

Francis Henry Sandbach , nickname Harry (born February 23, 1903 in Edgbaston , Birmingham , † September 18, 1991 in Cambridge ) was a British classical philologist .

Life

Sandbach was the older son of Francis Edward Sandbach (1874-1946), a lecturer and later professor of German language and literature at the University of Birmingham , and his wife Ethel Bywater (1874-1949), a teacher. From 1914 to 1921 he attended King Edward's School in Birmingham. His upbringing was agnostic , and he had not been able to accept the central teachings of Christianity since his school days.

In 1920 he received a scholarship to study classical philology at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge , where he was to remain with only a few interruptions until his death. He achieved first class honors in the classical tripos , received the Browne and Craven Scholarships, the Chancellor's First Medal in Classical Philology, and the Charles Oldham Scholarship. In 1927 he received a research fellowship at Trinity College for a dissertation on Plutarch . From 1926 to 1928 he was an assistant lecturer at Manchester University .

From 1929 on, Sandbach held positions as a college and university lecturer in Classics, in 1951 he was promoted to Brereton reader and in 1967 he was given an extraordinary professorship in Classics. Sandbach stayed in Cambridge from 1939 to 1943; In addition to his apprenticeship, he carried out various tasks in air and homeland security. From 1943 to 1945 he worked in the topographical department of the Admiralty in Oxford. From 1945 he was a tutor at Trinity College, from 1953 to 1956 senior tutor.

Sandbach had been a Fellow of the British Academy since 1968, and in 1977 he was accepted into the Kungliga Vetenskaps- och Vitterhetssamhället i Göteborg .

Sandbach was married to Mary Warburton Mathews (1901–1990), a specialist in Swedish language and literature and Strindberg translator, since July 9, 1932 . The marriage resulted in a daughter (* 1940) and a son (* 1943).

Research priorities

Sandbach initially worked for Plutarch and contributed to the author's Loeb Edition . His main work, however, was the Greek comedy poet Menander . In 1959, on behalf of the Clarendon Press , he took over a commentary on this Hellenistic playwright, rediscovered on papyri, begun by Arnold Wycombe Gomme , and published it around 14 years later almost at the same time as his own complete edition of Fragments Menander. Working on Plutarch gave rise to an interest in the Stoics that led to two monographs, and working on Menander a book on ancient comedy. An interest in Virgil had been fostered by RS Conway while in Manchester .

Fonts (selection)

• Plutarchi Moralia , Volume IX: Table-Talk, Books 7-9. Dialogue on Love . Translated by Edwin L. Minar, Jr., FH Sandbach, WC Helmbold. Harvard UP, Cambridge, Mass. 1961 (Loeb Classical Library 425)
• Plutarchi Moralia , Volume XI: On the Malice of Herodotus. Causes of Natural Phenomena. Translated by Lionel Pearson, FH Sandbach. Harvard UP, Cambridge, Mass. 1965 (Loeb Classical Library 426)
• Plutarchi Moralia , Volume XV: Fragments . Translated by FH Sandbach. Harvard UP, Cambridge, Mass. 1969 (Loeb Classical Library 429)
• Menandri Reliquiae Selectae . Oxford UP, Oxford 1972 ( Oxford Classical Texts ); updated edition 1990.
• and Arnold Wycombe Gomme: Menander. A Commentary . Oxford UP, Oxford 1973.
• The Stoics . Chatto and Windus, London 1975.
• The Comic Theater of Greece and Rome. Chatto and Windus, London 1977.
• Aristotle and the Stoics. Cambridge Philological Society, Cambridge 1985. - Review by Brad Inwood , in: The Philosophical Review 95.3 (1986), pp. 470-473, online

literature

• EJ Kenney : Sandbach, Francis Henry (1903-1991) , in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2012 (full text)
• EJ Kenney, CFL Austin , DAFM Russell and M. Schofield: Francis Henry Sandbach, 1903-91 , in: Proceedings of the British Academy 84 (1994), 485-503
• Roger D. Dawe : Gnomon 64 (1992) 473-474
• Roger D. Dawe: The Times (October 5, 1991)
• Roger D. Dawe: The Independent (September 27, 1991)
• William Geoffrey Arnott : The Guardian (September 27, 1991)

Web links

• Memorial brass in the Chapel of Trinity College Cambridge (with memorial inscription by EJ Kenney and the text of his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and with a photograph)
• Old Edwardians website