Farewell to the historian Peter Green

Happy Sunday everyone, I’m Elena from Italy and thanks to be here on Alessandro III di Macedonia- your source on Alexander the Great and Hellenism. In a world full of news we can easily access with our smartphones, it surprises me how only one website talks about this sad news. Given the importance of this historian for fans of Alexander the Great and Hellenism, I will tell you about him briefly because it is right to remember his passing.

Almost a week ago, on Monday September 16, historian Peter Green passed away at the age of 99. He would have turned 100 on December 22.
Green was born on 22 December 1924. He went to school at Charterhouse and during World War II, he served with the Royal Air Force in Burma. After the war, Green studied at Cambridge, where he achieved a Double First in Classics, winning the Craven Scholarship and Studentship in 1950. He subsequently wrote historical novels and worked as a journalist, in the capacity of fiction critic for the Daily Telegraph (1953–63), book columnist for the Yorkshire Post (1961–62), television critic for The Listener (1962–63), film critic for John O’London’s (1961–63), as well as contributing to other journals. In 1963, he and his family moved to the Greek island of Lesbos, where he was a translator and independent scholar. In 1966 he moved to Athens, where he was recruited to teach classics for College Year in Athens, and published Armada from Athens, a study of the Sicilian Expedition of 415–3 BC (1970), and The Year of Salamis, a history of the Greco-Persian Wars (1971). In 1971 Green was invited to teach at the University of Texas at Austin, where he became Dougherty Centennial Professor of Classics in 1982, emeritus from 1997. In 1986, he held the Mellon Chair of Humanities at Tulane University in New Orleans. He was last an adjunct professor at the University of Iowa where his wife Carin taught in the Classics Department.

Dr. Green was a prolofic author and At the time of his death, Green was working with Glenn Storey on a new translation of the works of Herodotus with full commentaries. That work is expected to be published in 2025.

The Expanding Eye – A First Journey To The Mediterranean (1952) Illustrated with photographs.
Habeas Corpus And Other Stories (1954) (eight short stories)
Achilles His Armour (1955) (historical novel about Alcibiades and the Peloponnesian War).
Cat in Gloves (Under pseudonym Denis Delaney) (1956), Gryphon Books
The Sword of Pleasure (1957) (fictional memoirs of Sulla)
Kenneth Grahame: A Biography: The Dramatic and Human Story of the Fascinating and Complex Man Who Wrote The Wind in the Willows (1959)
Writers & their Work – Sir Thomas Browne (1959), Longman for The British Council
Writers & their Work – John Skelton (1960), Longman for the British Council
Essays in Antiquity (1960)
Destiny of Fire by Zoe Oldenbourg (translation of Les Brûlés) (1961)
Massacre at Montségur by Zoe Oldenbourg (translation of Le Bûcher de Montségur (1961)
The Life of Jesus by Jean Steinmann (translation) (1963)
The Laughter of Aphrodite: A Novel About Sappho of Lesbos (1965)
The Sixteen Satires by Juvenal (translation) (1967)
The Year of Salamis, 480-479 BC (1970) (UK) = Xerxes at Salamis (1970) (USA)
Alexander the Great (1970)
Armada from Athens (1970)
The Shadow of the Parthenon: Studies in Ancient History and Literature (1972)
The Parthenon (1973)
A Concise History of Ancient Greece to the Close of the Classical Era (1973)
Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.; A Historical Biography (1974; re-issue in U.S., 1991, as indicated below)[12]
Ancient Greece: An Illustrated History (1979)
Ovid: The Erotic Poems (1982)
Classical Bearings: Interpreting Ancient History and Culture (1989)
Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age (1990)
Alexander of Macedon, 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography (1991)
Ovid: The Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters (1994)
The Argonautika by Apollonios Rhodios (translation) (1997)
The Greco-Persian Wars (1996) (update of The Year of Salamis)
From Ikaria to the Stars: Classical Mythification, Ancient and Modern (2004)
The Poems of Catullus (2005)
Diodorus Siculus, Books 11–12.37.1 : Greek history 480–431 B.C.—the Alternative Version, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2006.
Alexander The Great and the Hellenistic Age (2007)
The Hellenistic Age: A Short History (2007)
The Iliad by Homer (translation) (2015)
The Odyssey by Homer (translation) (2018)

In my opinion, these texts have particular importance even if there are also others that speak of Alexander and Hellenism.

The academic world remembers him these days with fond memories of shared experiences and beautiful encounters. I express my condolences to his family and loved ones.