In Memoriam: Roger Hornsby
We were saddened to learn yesterday of the passing of Roger Hornsby, Professor emeritus of Classics at the University of Iowa. Prof. Hornsby was a very good friend of the ECU Classics Program. He was the first classicist to hold the Whichard Chair, our College’s annual distinguished visiting professorship, in 1997-98. During that year, he gave the well remembered lecture “The Liberal Arts, The Humanities and Other Good Things.” He visited Greenville numerous times in the succeeding years. His presence was always a welcome respite from the routine of the academic year. He had a deep, loving and infectious understanding of ancient literature. He possessed the sharpest wit I have ever known, outpaced only by the sharpness of his sagacious mind.
Prof. Hornsby spent his career at the University of Iowa. His early books on Latin literature and especially his book on similes in Vergil’s Aeneid are models of Classical scholarship. Yet he will not be remembered primarily for his scholarship. He was never the most prolific publisher. Rather, his life demonstrated that the scholar’s influence need not be between the woven covers of a tome. He leaves behind a veritable legion of students whose lives he touched deeply. I myself was never fortunate enough to study with him. I have, however, met several who did, and have repeatedly found that they will regale you with improbable Hornsby tales and, more importantly, will express without provocation how Roger shaped their lives in the classroom and beyond it.
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
There are too few encounters that touch our lives in a most positive way. Still fewer are the ones that we never forget, even for a day. I knew little about classics when I signed up for Dr. Hornsby’s class at East Carolina University. I was a fine art student concentrating in Sculpture and I wanted interesting subjects to study as my electives. Lucky for me his first semester as a visiting professor was my first classics introduction. What an introduction it was. The combination of Plato’s last days of Socrates and Dr. Hornsby’s guidance in its understanding quickly became the highlight of my life at that time. He awakened in me a deep love for the classics because he helped me see that there is always more to the story than you see there on the page. The references to other literary works opened up a whole new world of possibility for me. I would wake up on Tuesday or Thursday mornings and jump out of bed with excitement because I was going to his class that day. The other students rolled their eyes every time my hand shot up in the air to answer every question he posed. I have never been this enthusiastic in a classroom in my life before or since having the great pleasure of being one of his students. I of course attended every class he taught and every lecture he gave while at ECU. I was fortunate enough to keep in touch with him over the years but life takes us all where it will and our letters became more infrequent. Eventually my letters were returned due to his University of Iowa e-mail address no longer being valid. I was made aware today of his passing a few weeks ago. He was a truly magnificent man and will always live on fondly in my cherished memories.
Roger Hornsby’s obituary was published today in the Iowa City Press Citizen. The author was kind enough to mention Roger’s time at ECU.
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20091022/NEWS02/910220337/1078/Roger-Hornsby–83