Duckworth, George Eckel

Duckworth, George Eckel (1903-1972), second Giger Professor of Latin, was associated with the University as student (A.B. 1924, Ph.D. 1931) and teacher for almost half a century.

An authority on Roman comedy, especially Plautus, and on Horace and Vergil, he was known among classical scholars the world over for his studies of Vergil's use of the Golden Mean ratio in the Aeneid. He was one of the most productive scholars in the history of the Department of Classics. On his retirement in 1971, the department published and distributed to classical scholars here and abroad his bibliography, listing seven books and more than a hundred journal articles and reviews, and calling attention to hundreds of articles he had written for four encyclopedias. In tribute to his achievement, his colleagues quoted from Pliny: ``Ille thesaurus est [He is a storehouse of knowledge].''

His erudition, his enthusiasm for his subject, and his warm interest in his students made him an effective and popular teacher. When his last illness prevented him from meeting with classes, his undergraduate students helped him celebrate Vergil's 2000th birthday by coming to his house with a huge birthday cake and a commemorative scroll.

Duckworth was a trustee of the American Academy in Rome, a Guggenheim Fellow, and president of the American Philological Association.

From Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, copyright Princeton University Press (1978).