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  • Christine Dunbar Sarbanes (1936–2009)
  • Judith P. Hallett

Christine Dunbar Sarbanes, who taught Latin, Greek, and French at the Gilman School in Baltimore from 1978 through 2000, died at her home in the Guilford section of Baltimore on March 22, 2009. She was seventy-three. Born in London and raised in Brighton, England, she received a bachelor's degree in Literae Humaniores from St. Hugh's College, Oxford University, in 1958, and an MA, also from [End Page 497] Oxford, in 1974. As an undergraduate—while seeking support among the American students there for women's admission into the (then) all-male Oxford Union, a debating society—she met her husband Paul Spyros Sarbanes, a Rhodes Scholar from Princeton University. After returning to the US and attending Harvard Law School, Paul Sarbanes served for three terms as the U.S. Representative from Maryland's Third Congressional District (1971–1977) and for five terms as a U.S. Senator from Maryland (1977–2007). Christine taught Latin at the Dana Hall School in Wellesley, Massachusetts upon her arrival in the US. When the couple relocated to Baltimore, she worked as a lecturer in classics at Goucher College for several years before joining the faculty of the (still) all-male Gilman School.

A strikingly handsome woman endowed with a powerful intellect, widely admired for both her strong social conscience and extraordinary political acumen, Christine Sarbanes generously shared her time and talents with a variety of cultural organizations. Along with her husband, she co-chaired the American Philological Association's Capital Campaign Committee. A member of the Maryland Humanities Council, she also served on the boards of the Society for the Preservation of the Greek Heritage, the Walters Art Museum, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and the Baltimore Volunteer Group to the US Fund for UNICEF. The Classical Association of the Atlantic States, at which she gave presentations on topics ranging from language pedagogy to the Parthenon, honored her and her husband with Latin ovationes in 1996. A conference on the future of Latin teaching at the University of Maryland, College Park, on May 2, 2009 was dedicated to both her memory and that of another champion of Latin learning: Dora Funari Kennedy, head of the foreign language program in the public schools of Maryland's Prince George's County, who died on February 1, 2009. At its May 22, 2009 Commencement, Goucher College awarded her a posthumous honorary degree.

Hundreds of mourners packed the atrium of the Pratt Library for Christine's memorial service, on April 3, 2009. Speakers included U.S. Vice-President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, US Senator Barbara Mikulski, Walters Art Museum Director Gary Vikan, and Christine's three children, all graduates of Princeton: John P. Sarbanes, US Representative from Maryland's Third District; Michael A. Sarbanes; and Janet Sarbanes. The Vice-President's eulogy invoked Plato's depiction of the swan in his Phaedo; Christine's special connections with Greek and Latin literary texts also figured memorably in her children's remarks. Her son Michael, who studied ancient history at Balliol College, Oxford, as a Marshall Scholar, read a cell-phone text message from a former Gilman student that incorporated, in Latin, the final lines of Catullus 101. Her daughter recalled that in the days immediately preceding her death Christine memorized, and proudly recited in Greek, the opening lines of Homer's Iliad. An elegiac couplet written by the Roman elegist Sulpicia, to commemorate the Greek lectrix Petale, learned reader of literature, applies to Christine equally well: [End Page 498]

Omnia naturae bona videbat, arte vigebat, Splendebat forma, crcverat ingenio.

She had seen all good things of nature, she flourished in her art, she was splendid in her beauty, she had grown in her talent [End Page 499]

Judith P. Hallett
University of Maryland, College Park
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