Colin François Lloyd Austin, FBA (26 July 1941 – 13 August 2010) was a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
scholar of ancient Greek.
Biography
Colin Austin was born in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, in 1941, the second son of Lloyd James Austin (1915–1994) and of Jeanne-Françoise (''née'' Guérin). A few years later the family moved to
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
and then to
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
.
He was educated at the
Lycée Lakanal
Lycée Lakanal is a public secondary school in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. It was named after Joseph Lakanal, a French politician, and an original member of the Institut de France. The school also offers a midd ...
, Paris,
Manchester Grammar School
The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) in Manchester, England, is the largest independent school (UK), independent day school for boys in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1515 as a Grammar school#free tuition, free grammar school next to Manchester C ...
,
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes fr ...
, and
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...
, where Sir
Hugh Lloyd-Jones
Sir Peter Hugh Jefferd Lloyd-Jones FBA (21 September 1922 – 5 October 2009Browne Medal in 1961 and the
Porson Prize
The Porson Prize is an award for Greek verse composition at the University of Cambridge. It was founded in honor of classical scholar Richard Porson and was first awarded in 1817. Winners are known as "Porson prizemen".
Winners of the Porson Pri ...
in 1962.''The International Who's Who 2004''. London and New York: Europa Publications, 2003, p. 60. In 1965, the year in which he gained his doctorate, Austin returned to Cambridge as Research Fellow of Trinity Hall, where he then served as Director of Studies in Classics until 2005, and as University Lecturer (from 1969), Reader (from 1988) and finally as the holder of a personal chair as Professor of Greek (1998–2008) in the Faculty of Classics. In 1983 he was elected a Fellow of the
British Academy
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences.
It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...
.
He died on 13 August 2010.
Colin Austin's main works were related to
Thesmophoriazusae
''Thesmophoriazusae'' ( grc-gre, Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι; ''Thesmophoriazousai'', meaning ''Women Celebrating the Festival of the Thesmophoria''), or ''Women at the Thesmophoria'' (sometimes also called ''The Poet and the Women''), is o ...
by
Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
and
Menander
Menander (; grc-gre, Μένανδρος ''Menandros''; c. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) was a Greek dramatist and the best-known representative of Athenian New Comedy. He wrote 108 comedies and took the prize at the Lenaia festival eight times. His rec ...
. Austin's commentary on
Thesmophoriazusae
''Thesmophoriazusae'' ( grc-gre, Θεσμοφοριάζουσαι; ''Thesmophoriazousai'', meaning ''Women Celebrating the Festival of the Thesmophoria''), or ''Women at the Thesmophoria'' (sometimes also called ''The Poet and the Women''), is o ...
was published by the
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
in a 2004 edition co-edited by S. Douglas Olson. Austin was the first publisher (1967) of the new portion of
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful e ...
' tragedy
Erectheus
Erechtheus (; grc, Ἐρεχθεύς) in Greek mythology was the name of an archaic king of Athens, the founder of the ''polis'' and, in his role as god, attached to Poseidon, as "Poseidon Erechtheus". The mythic Erechtheus and the historical Ere ...
, extracted from a mummy casing in Paris. He was also the first publisher (1969) of the first and third plays from the
Bodmer Codex
The Bodmer Papyri are a group of twenty-two papyri discovered in Egypt in 1952. They are named after Martin Bodmer, who purchased them. The papyri contain segments from the Old and New Testaments, early Christian literature, Homer, and Menander. ...
of Menander: Samia "The Woman from Samos", and "Aspis", "The Shield". In partnership with
Rudolf Kassel
Rudolf Kassel (11 May 1926 – 26 February 2020) was a German classical philologist. He was a professor at the Free University of Berlin from 1963 to 1975 and subsequently the University of Cologne from 1975 until his retirement in 1991.
Career
Ka ...
, Austin started in 1983 the comprehensive edition of the Greek Comic Dramatists, ''Poetae Comici Graeci'' (PCG). Volumes published up to 2001 provide some 4,500 pages of surviving texts of more than 250 authors with commentary.