Frank M. Snowden Jr. (1911–2007)

Professor Frank M. Snowden Jr. passed away on February 18 of this year in Washington, D.C., after a long and celebrated life in a variety of professional vocations—instructor, scholar, administrator, diplomat. The classics world can justifiably claim that it has lost one of its giants.¹

Professor Snowden graduated from the Boston Latin School in 1928 and proceeded to Harvard University, where he was awarded his bachelor's (1932), master's (1933), and doctoral (1944) degrees in classics. He began his professional career as an instructor in Latin, French, and English at Virginia State College (1933–1936) and then moved to Spelman College and Atlanta University, where he was an instructor in classics (1936–1940). From then until 1990 he was a member of the faculty at Howard University, during which time he served as Director of the Evening School and Adult Education (1942–1948), Director of the Summer School (1942–1954), Chairman of the Department of Classics (1942–1978), and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts (1956–1968). After his retirement from Howard he taught as Adjunct Professor of Classics at Georgetown University (1990–1991) and Visiting Distinguished Professor at Vassar College (1992). He received honorary degrees from Bard College, Union College, Howard University, Georgetown University, and the University of Maryland.

Professor Snowden was most well known for his scholarship in an area that he made virtually his own, the study of blacks in antiquity. His book, Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Harvard University Press, 1970), received the Goodwin Award of Merit from the American Philological Association in 1973. His other seminal work was Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks (Harvard University Press, 1983). Among his many other publications are the coauthored volume, The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (Harvard University Press, 1976), and his autobiographical chapter in Against the Odds: Scholars Who Challenged Racism in the Twentieth Century (University of Massachusetts Press, 2004).²

He was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy (1949–1950) and a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (1977); he also received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies (1962–1963) and the National Endowment of the Humanities (1970). He was a lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America (1970–1971, 1974), served as a member of the Board of Directors (1976–1979) and as Vice-President (1983) of the American Philological Association, and was a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers (1977–1979).

What is least known about him is his career in government service. Among his many postings, he was Lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute (1956–1962, 1966–1968); Leader and Specialist Lecturer for the International Information Administration of the Department of State in North and West Africa, Western Europe, India, and Brazil (1953–1960); member of the U.S. Delegation to UNESCO in Paris (1958, 1960); and Cultural Attaché of the American Embassy in Rome (1954–1956). In recognition of his outstanding educational and cultural contributions he received Italy's Medaglio D'Oro (1958).

By the time I arrived at Howard University in 1984, Professor Snowden had already been formally retired for several years, though he continued to teach on occasion. I had met him previously on campus when I came to visit colleagues while I was in the area. And while there I had even seen him in action, holding forth in the classroom in his mainstay course, "Blacks in Antiquity." I quickly came to realize from his booming voice and uncompromising pronouncements why he had been dubbed "Zeus" by students in the 1940s. Over the course of the next twenty years or so, we became friends, and our friendship deepened when, in 1998, I was appointed Chairman of the Department of Classics. Although Professor Snowden was by now well into retirement, he remained active in the discipline. Before too long, however, both his wife's and his own health were in decline, and they transferred to an assisted-care complex. I helped with the administration of his extensive collection of...