Tenney Frank (May 19, 1876 – April 3, 1939) was a prominent American

ancient historian Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...

and

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

. He studied many aspects of

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

, for instance its economy, imperialism, demographics and epigraphy.

Biography

Tenney Frank earned his A.B. at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

in 1898 and A.M. the following year. Frank went on to receive his Ph.D. at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1903. Frank taught at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh: ) is a women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of elite, historically women's colleges in the United St ...

as Professor of Latin from 1904 until 1919, when he moved to the

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. At Bryn Mawr Frank wrote and published his influential study ''Roman Imperialism'' in 1914. Frank believed that Rome's

imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

stemmed from a desire to keep peace in the Mediterranean world by preventing the rise of any rival power. Frank's other work focused on classical literature, with articles on

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...

Curiatius Maternus Curiatius Maternus () appears in the ''Dialogus de oratoribus'' (Dialogue on orators) of Tacitus. He was an author of tragedies in Latin, having composed a ''Domitius'', a ''Medea'', and a ''Cato'' by AD 74 or 75. He may be identified with the sop ...

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the gen ...

, and

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

, among others. In 1932 he gave the British Academy's Master-Mind Lecture, on Cicero. He wrote periodically for the ''American Historical Review'', including a paper on the demise of the various ancient Italian peoples that comprised 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 ...

ethnicity in

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

's day. Arguing that Roman expansion brought in masses of foreign peoples and slaves that over time changed the ethnic make-up of the Roman populace and contributed to the empire's ruin. He worked on Latin inscriptions, including the

stele A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

from the

Forum Romanum The Roman Forum, also known by its Latin name Forum Romanum ( it, Foro Romano), is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient ...

in Rome, and on Roman construction and the

Servian Wall The Servian Wall ( la, Murus Servii Tullii; it, Mura Serviane) was an ancient Roman defensive barrier constructed around the city of Rome in the early 4th century BC. The wall was built of volcanic tuff and was up to in height in places, wide ...

of Rome and."The Letters on the Blocks of the Servian Wall"
''The American Journal of Philology'', Vol. XLV, No.1, (1924), pp. 68‑69. His work on the Roman

economy An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the ...

was a seminal study of the economy and trade in the Roman world. He married Grace Edith Mayer in 1907. Of Swedish ancestry, Frank was influenced by his agrarian roots. He was also multilingual and had a great facility for languages, including Scandinavian tongues. At Johns Hopkins, Frank trained

Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton, FBA (; 17 February 1900 – 17 September 1993) was a Canadian classical scholar and leading Latin prosopographer of the twentieth century. He is especially noted for his definitive three-volume work, ''Magistra ...

, with whom he collaborated on his studies of the Roman economy. A bibliography of Frank's work may be found in ''The American Journal of Philology'' 60.3 (1939).

Works

* (1903). ''A Stichometric Scholium to the Medea of Euripides'', The University of Chicago Press. * (1904). ''Attraction of Mood in Early Latin: A Dissertation'', Press of the New Era Printing Company. * (1920)
''An Economic History of Rome to the End of the Republic''
Johns Hopkins University Press ev. ed. 1927 * (1922)
''Vergil, a Biography''
Henry Holt & Company ussell & Russell, 1965 * (1923)
''A History of Rome''
Henry Holt & Company. * (1924)
"Latin Quantitative Speech as Affected by Immigration"
''The American Journal of Philology'', Vol. 45, No. 2 (1924), pp. 161–175. * (1924). ''Roman Buildings of the Republic'', American Academy in Rome. * (1928). ''Catullus and Horace'', Henry Holt & Company ussell & Russell, 1965 * (1930). ''Life and Literature in the Roman Republic'', Sather Classical Lectures, University of California Press
Sixth Printing
1971. * (1932). ''Aspects of Social Behavior in Ancient Rome'', Harvard University Press ooper Square Publishers, 1969 * (1933 & 1940). ''An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome'', Johns Hopkins University Press. ** Vol. I: ''Rome and Italy of the Republic''. ** Vol. V: ''Rome and Italy of the Empire''. Other *

References

Necrology

* DeWitt, Norman W. (1939)
"Tenney Frank", ''The American Journal of Philology'', 60(3), pp. 273–287
* Pease, Arthur Stanley (1940). "Tenney Frank (1876-1939)," ''Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences'', Vol. 74, No. 6. * Taylor, Lily Ross (1939)
"In Memoriam: Tenney Frank,"
''Bryn Mawr Alumnæ Bulletin'', Vol. XIX, No. 1.

External links

* Tenney Frank at Database of Classical Scholar

* *
Works by Tenney Frank
at

Hathi Trust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

Works by Tenney Frank
at

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

Professor Tenney Frank on Agriculture in Early Latium

several journal articles by Tenney Frank {{DEFAULTSORT:Frank, Tenney American historians American classical scholars 1876 births 1939 deaths People from Clay Center, Kansas Classical scholars of Bryn Mawr College Classical scholars of Johns Hopkins University Scholars of Latin literature American people of Swedish descent Bryn Mawr College faculty Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy

Biography

Works

References

Necrology

Further reading

External links