On Monday September 16 in the early morning Peter Green died at the age of 99, just three months before his 100^th birthday.  Peter was a remarkable man, an incredible scholar, and my dear friend.  Peter was born in England, served in the intelligence corps in World War II, and studied at Cambridge.  After the war, in England he was a journalist and author of historical fiction.  He lived with his family on Lesbos in Greece in the 1960s, and eventually took a professorship at the University of Texas in Austin in 1971.  After retirement, Peter came to Iowa City, where his wife Carin taught in the Classics Department.  Peter taught courses for the Departments of History and of Classics, and became the editor of Syllecta Classica, the journal of the Iowa Classics Department.

Peter was a prolific author. He published such scholarly acclaimed works as Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.; A Historical Biography (1974), Ovid: The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters (1994), The Poems of Catullus (2005), The Hellenistic Age: A Short History (2007), The Iliad by Homer (2015), and The Odyssey by Homer (2018).  At the time of his death, he was completing (with the aid of Professor Glenn Storey of the Classics Department at Iowa and Thomas Rose, who was Peter’s dissertation student at Iowa) his translation with commentary of Herodotus’ Histories, which will be published by University of California Press in 2025.

Peter touched many lives during his long career.  When I posted the news of his death on Facebook, within 24 hours 85 people (friends, colleagues, former students) reacted to the news and 26 left personal reminiscences of him, mentioning how Peter had helped them in their careers and in their lives. 

I have known Peter since the 1990s.  I have enjoyed many lunches, dinners, and get-togethers with him.  He was a lively raconteur, who kept me entertained with stories about his activities in World War II, his life in post-war England, his time on Lesbos, and his life as a faculty member in Austin.  We shared tales of publishing and of translating ancient authors, and he gave me much good advice about publishing over the years. I will miss him and our Friday chats.

Requiescat in pace, Peter.

Professor Emeritus Dr. John Finamore

If you would like to contribute to the Peter Green Gift Fund in memory of Peter Green, please use this link. 

This fund assists the University of Iowa Department of Classics in fulfilling its mission to educate students about the classical world and its literature.