Russell Meiggs (20 October 1902 – 24 June 1989) was a British ancient historian. He did extensive research on the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...
port city of
Ostia.
Early life and education
Meiggs was born at
Balham
Balham () is an area in south London, England, mostly within the London Borough of Wandsworth with small parts within the neighbouring London Borough of Lambeth. The area has been settled since Saxon times and appears in the Domesday Book as B ...
, south London, son of William Herrick Meiggs (1866-1939), sometime self-styled "general merchant" declared bankrupt in 1916, and his wife Mary Gertrude (née May). William Meiggs was the son of railroad builder John Gilbert Meiggs (1827-1904), of Chelsea, formerly of New York, USA, younger brother of railroad builder
Henry Meiggs
Henry Meiggs (July 7, 1811 – September 30, 1877), was a promotor/entrepreneur and railroad builder born in Boston, Massachusetts
Business career
Lumber
Meiggs came to New York City in 1835 and began a lumber business that was ruined by the ...
; William's sister, Helen, married Sir James Rhoderic Duff
McGrigor, 3rd Baronet. The former success of the Meiggs family was diminished by the time Russell Meiggs was born; his grandfather "died almost destitute" after political developments in Argentina ruined a business venture, and William Meiggs, being the fourth son, had to make his own way in the world. He had eloped with Mary to Argentina in 1897, their first child, Helen, being born at
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
in 1898. The family settled in London, but William left the family, subsequently going to
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
and elsewhere, with Meiggs "as a child... led to believe his father was dead"; despite William surviving until 1939, "Russell felt no obligation toward him". Mary "brought up her children in poverty", a paternal aunt securing a place for Meiggs at
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 11–18) with a royal charter located to the south of Horsham in West Sussex. The school was founded in 1552 and received its first royal charter in 1553 ...
; he subsequently went up to
Keble College, Oxford
Keble College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its main buildings are on Parks Road, opposite the University Museum and the University Parks. The college is bordered to the north by Keble Road, to th ...
, where he took an
MA.
Career
Meiggs was Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History (and Prefect of the College 1945- 1969) at
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...
, from 1939 to 1970. He "mastered the entire field" of the study of classical antiquity, as opposed to the increasing popularity of specialism; he "taught both Greek and Roman history, lectured on epigraphy, and worked closely with archaeologists, although, in the old Oxford manner, he published almost nothing for decades". He was
praefectus
''Praefectus'', often with a further qualification, was the formal title of many, fairly low to high-ranking, military or civil officials in the Roman Empire, whose authority was not embodied in their person (as it was with elected Magistrates) but ...
of
Holywell Manor
Holywell Manor is a historic building in central Oxford, England, in the parish of Holywell. It currently houses some of Balliol College's postgraduate student population. It is on the corner of Manor Road and St Cross Road, next to St Cro ...
, an annexe ten minutes from Balliol, home to fifty undergraduates, where his wife was "a dashing hostess"; Meiggs's daily procession to the college was a popular subject of tourist photography.
Meiggs's early writings were closely related to his teaching; one a "masterly revision" of Bury's ''History of Greece'', another "a large collection of sources in the original tongues for the history of Greece" undertaken with
Antony Andrewes
Antony Andrewes, (12 June 1910 – 13 June 1990) was an English classical scholar and historian. He was Wykeham Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford from 1953 to 1977.
Early life
Andrewes was born in Tavistock, Devon, Englan ...
. Despite a wide range of interests which held potential as subjects for books- "a history of the Roman port of Ostia based on the exciting archaeological discoveries, a synthetic treatment of the fifth-century Athenian empire in the light of the great epigraphical material (above all, the Athenian tribute lists), a study of Herodotus"- Meiggs's first major work, ''Roman Ostia'', was produced "in the midst of a crushing schedule of teaching and college affairs"; his later writing took place after his retirement.
He was a periodic visiting professor in the Classics Department at
Swarthmore College
Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
, Pennsylvania, in the 1970s, where he taught (among other classes) Greece in the Fifth Century (BCE) and Roman Ostia. In 1981, he was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 1981. During World War II he worked at the Ministry of Supply, where he was chief labour officer, responsible for home timber production. This experience led him to formulate an interest in a survey of trees and timber in the ancient world as a prospective topic of study, ''Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World'' eventually being published in 1982.
His eccentricity was legendary; his "flaring shoulder-length gray hair, massive black eyebrows, leathery skin, and Aztec profile" and "jaunty disregard of conventional formalities" made him a popular and admired figure amongst undergraduates. His papers are in the Balliol College library.
Personal life
In 1941, Meiggs married the historian
Pauline Gregg
Pauline Emily Meiggs (née Gregg) (17 July 1909 – 11 March 2006), who wrote under the name Pauline Gregg, was a British historian.
Early life and education
Born at Palmers Green, north London, to working-class parents Thomas James Nathaniel Gr ...
(1909-2006). They had met at the Ministry of Supply. They had two daughters.
Bibliography
*''Home Timber Production (1939-1945)'' (1949)
*''The Athenian Empire'' (1972)
*''Roman Ostia'' (1960;
2nd ed. 1973)
*(with
J. B. Bury
John Bagnell Bury (; 16 October 1861 – 1 June 1927) was an Anglo-Irish historian, classical scholar, Medieval Roman historian and philologist. He objected to the label "Byzantinist" explicitly in the preface to the 1889 edition of his ''Lat ...
) ''A history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great'' (1978) multiple editions.
* ''Trees and timber in the ancient Mediterranean world'' (1982).
* ed. ''A Selection of Greek historical inscriptions to the end of the fifth century B.C.'' (1988).
* A. Gallina Zevi, ed. Roman Ostia' revisited : archaeological and historical papers in memory of Russell Meiggs'' (1996)
References
*Obituary by Jasper Griffin in ''The Independent'' 27 June 1989; Oswyn Murray in ''The Guardian'' 28 June 1989.
*Biography by
Kenneth Dover
Sir Kenneth James Dover, (11 March 1920 – 7 March 2010) was a distinguished British classical scholar and academic. He was president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, from 1976 to 1986. In addition, he was president of the British Academy fro ...
in ''Proceedings of the British Academy'' 80 (1991) 361-70.
*Obituary by
Glen Bowersock
Glen Warren Bowersock (born January 12, 1936 in Providence, Rhode Island) is a historian of ancient Greece, Rome and the Near East, and former Chairman of Harvard’s classics department.
Early life
Bowersock was born in Providence, Rhode Island a ...
Obituary: Russell Meiggs" In ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' 135 (1991), 473–77.
Portrait by Michael Noakes in the collection of Balliol College, Oxford
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meiggs, Russell
British classical scholars
Historians of antiquity
1902 births
1989 deaths
People educated at Christ's Hospital
Alumni of Keble College, Oxford
Classical scholars of the University of Oxford
Swarthmore College
20th-century British historians
Members of the American Philosophical Society