William Woodthorpe Tarn

Sir William Woodthorpe Tarn (born February 26, 1869 in London , † November 7, 1957 in Muirtown ) was a British ancient historian who emerged in particular with research on Hellenism .

William Woodthorpe Tarn attended Eton College from 1882 to 1888 . This was followed by a study of Greek philosophy in particular with Henry Jackson at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge until 1892 . After graduation followed a professional training and from 1894 to 1905 Tarn worked as a lawyer in London. Due to health problems, he quit his professional career and went to Scotland as a private scholar . In 1913 he published his first work resulting from his studies, a biography of Antigonus II Gonatas dedicated to his teacher Jackson . During the First World War , Tarn worked for the War Office in London . After the war he returned to Muirtown. In 1919 he successfully published a fairy tale. As an ancient historian, he contributed to several volumes of The Cambridge Ancient History . This work also led to a more intensive preoccupation with Alexander the Great . In the late 1920s, Tarn Lee Knowles became a lecturer at Trinity College, becoming an Honory Fellow in 1939.

In 1948 Tarn's main work was published, a two-volume biography of Alexander which, according to A. Brian Bosworth, made him the most famous name in the English scholarship on Alexander (the “most famous name in British Alexander research”), but which also provoked opposition. Tarn assessed Alexander extremely positively and ascribed to him great civilizational achievements and goals that unite humanity (“the unity of mankind”), which provoked , among others, the sharp contradiction of Ernst Badian , Hermann Bengtson and Fritz Schachermeyr . Another very opinionated monograph on the Hellenistic period was also influential and widespread. It was given several new editions, the last being in 1952. His research on Bactria and India even opened up new regions for ancient history. Tarn became a member of the British Academy in 1928 and personally knighted in 1952 . He was a foreign member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen since 1946 and of the American Philosophical Society since 1947, as well as a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute .

Fonts

• The culture of the Hellenistic world. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1966.
• with Martin P. Charlesworth: Octavian, Antonius and Cleopatra. Callwey, Munich 1967.
• Alexander the Great. 2 volumes, Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1968.

literature

• Heinrich Schlange-Schöningen : Tarn, William Woodthorpe. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 1213 f.