Robert Rowland (1938–2007)

The CAAS community has suffered a major loss with the death of a longtime member and widely respected scholar-teacher, Dr. Robert Rowland. He faced a diagnosis of cancer and the ordeal of prolonged medical testing with courage and unflappable dignity. He was undergoing medical treatment in Philadelphia when he passed away in his sleep on Wednesday, March 14, 2007.

A memorial service was held a month after his death at Loyola University of New Orleans, where Professor Rowland taught classics and history, during and after serving as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1991 to 1998. Rev. Kevin William Wildes, S.J., who officiated, asked mourners to "join together in remembering the gift of life God shared with us through Bob Rowland—husband, father, historian, teacher, colleague, and friend—and to remember his wife, Carol, and his four children and seven grandchildren as they, too, mourn his loss during this most difficult time."

I was very privileged to meet Bob Rowland when he was editor of The Augustan Age, teaching at the University of Maryland, College Park, and then serving as the President of CAAS. I remember him most clearly for his wit, his approachability, his abiding interest in the welfare of high-school teachers of the classics, and his respect for knowledge in all of its forms.

Before accepting his post at Loyola University of New Orleans, Professor Rowland had taught at La Salle University, Villanova University, the University of Missouri at Columbia, and the University of Maryland, College Park, where he was Chair of the Department of Classical Studies and Director of the Center for Archaeology. Bob was a Philadelphian and often shared his pride in his native city with others. He had received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Particularly memorable was his love for Sardinia, on which he often wrote and lectured. While he authored seven books and numerous articles (over 100), his magnum opus, The Periphery in the Center, was essentially the product of a year's sabbatical leave from Loyola in which he produced his history of ancient and early medieval Sardinia (published in 2001). He lectured widely, both at universities and at the meetings of learned societies in the United States, Canada, and Europe. At the time of his death, Professor Rowland was on the on-line editorial boards of De Imperatoribus Romanis, of which he was the Vice-Chairman in 1999, and of the Provinces of the Roman Empire.

Professor Rowland was a leader in many professional associations: President of the American Philological Association's Friends of Ancient History (1984), the Southern Section of the Classical Association of the Midwest and South (1982–1984), and the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (1989–1990). He was also the Executive Secretary of the Vergilian Society of America (1980–1991), and edited the annual journal The Augustan Age. In 1994, he was knighted with the title Cavaliere by the Republic of Italy, a distinction from which he derived immense pleasure.

We will miss Bob's cheerfulness, his esprit de corps, his welcoming attitude so evenly and warmly rendered to all with whom he came in contact. To Professor Robert Rowland let us all bid, ave atque vale.