Congratulations to Mary Beard, who has been awarded an OBE for services to Classical Scholarship. Very nice that such things continue to be recognized …. here are Dr Beard’s own thoughts on the matter:
- OBE? (A Don’s Life)
FWIW, I tried to track down other Classics types who have been similarly honoured and they are few and far between:
- Michael Grant OBE, CBE
- Peter Jones MBE
- Christopher Rowe, OBE
- Martin Ferguson Smith, OBE
… I’m sure there are more, but not many more. Now I’m wondering if Dr Beard is the first woman Classicist so honoured … Again, congrats to our favourite Don!!
UPDATE (an hour or so later): Averil Cameron received a DBE in 2006
I think Barbara Bell received an MBE in 2009?
Either way, brilliant news that more Classicists AND more female Classicists are being recognised and rewarded.
EUGE!
Barbara Bell received an MBE in 2009?
Either way, brilliant news that more Classicists AND more female Classicists are being recognised and rewarded.
EUGE!
Ian Jenkins OBE
RIchard Sorabji, Oxford (ancient philosopher) received a CBE in 1999
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill was invested OBE in 2004.
for classics or archaeology?
Wallace-Hadrill is an ancient historian by training, but the prefatory material to his own volume ‘Augustan Rome’ (Bristol, 1993) cites “services to Anglo-Italian cultural relations” as the impetus for the OBE award.
An OBE is nice, but I think I’d rather have my Loeb’s. Remember the old poem:
THE “FIRST HUNDRED” OF LOEB
(The Loeb Classical Library, founded by a munificent
American millionaire, Mr. James Loeb (prononcez “Lobe”),
and edited by Dr. E. Capps, Mr. T.E. Page and Dr.
W.H.D. Rouse, has now reached its hundredth volume.)
When ways are foul and days are damp,
When agitators rage and ramp,
And Smillie, with the aid of Cramp,
Threatens to rend the globe;
When margarine is scarce, or beef,
And drinks are dear and few and brief,
I find refreshment and relief
And comfort in my Loeb.
Good print, good company, a text
By no vain annotations vexed
Which call from students sore perplexed
The patience of a Job;
And, page by page, a first-rate crib,
Neither too faithful nor too glib —
That, without fulsomeness or fib,
Is what we get in Loeb.
Let scientists on various fronts
Indulge in their atomic stunts,
Or harness to our prams and punts
The puissant radiobe;
Me rather it delights to roam
Across the salt Aegean foam
With old Odysseus, far from home,
And bless the name of Loeb.
To soar with Plato to the heights;
To find in Plutarch’s kings and knights
The human touch that more delights
Than crown or regal robe;
To taste the fresh Pierian springs,
To see Catullus scorch his wings
With the fierce flame that sears and stings —
For this I thank thee, Loeb.
I’ve made no fortune out of beer;
I’m not a plutocrat or peer,
Nor yet a bloated profiteer,
An OM or e’en an OBE;
But if I’d thirty pounds to spare
I’d go and blow them then and there
Upon the Hundred Books that bear
The sign and seal of Loeb.