A Tribute to Peter Green
Peter Green, renowned classics scholar and novelist, passed away on September 16, 2024. A longtime author and translator for University of California Press, he was best known for his landmark authoritative works on ancient history, focusing particularly on Homer, the Greco-Persian Wars, Alexander the Great, and the Hellenistic Age.
With trademark lyrical, witty, and accessible prose, Green’s works transcended academia. He received much acclaim for his beautifully paced and agile translations of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, which garnered awards. His were works that were truly meant to be sung.
At the time of his passing, Green was working on a translation of and expansive commentary on Herodotus’s The Histories in partnership with his former student, Associate Professor of Archaeology, Glenn Storey. The Histories will be published in two volumes by University of California Press.
He is survived by the legacy of his scholarship and the countless readers and students influenced by his work.
Remembrances
From UC Press Director Erich van Rijn
Peter Green and his work have a long and deep history at UC Press, and we will all miss him greatly. As I began my career here in 1997, the first edition of his translation of The Argonautika was being published, and it became one of the centerpieces of our classical studies list, stewarded by his then-editor, Mary Lamprech, in the late 1990s. This was by no means the first book of his work that we published, and it would certainly not be the last. In subsequent years, we published a good many scholarly books and translations by Dr. Green, including fresh new translations of The Odyssey and The Iliad, to which he brought his distinctive approach, which carried them to new audiences. He will be missed by a large community of scholars and students, and certainly also by the staff of the Press who benefited from the opportunity to work with him.
From Production Editor Cindy Fulton:
It seems I have been working with Peter for much of my career at the press. The first title might have been Catullus, but I’m not sure. I do know that the Herodotus translation was always in the background. Once he had finished a task I had assigned him, he would tell me that he would reward himself by dipping back into that work. I think it gave his life meaning as he plowed through other projects, weathered health issues, and survived the loss of his beloved Carin. Working with him was always a challenge (he had opinions about everything), but past our bickering (often mediated by Carin, always the voice of reason) he was happy to chat about holiday plans and menus, travel, his new Bose headphones—the many things that delighted him on a daily basis. He was in the end a happy man, and that makes his loss a little easier to bear.
From copyeditor Peter Dreyer:
Cave adsum
Alexander the Great in the Battle of Issus Mosaic
In memoriam Peter Morris Green, novelist, classicist, historian (December 22, 1924–September 16, 2024)
“Beware, I’m here,” ici présent.
Read this, traveler, if you want.
Playing with words, as is my wont,
like or detest them, if you don’t,
these fragments strive to entertain,
that's their desire and maker’s aim,
whose friends are dying, one by one—
three gone thus far now this year’s sum.
As yours are, too, I have no doubt,
once in the world, but now without.
I’m quite alone—so are we all.
Illusions vanish; harms befall—
but you the living note these lines,
gazing back at merrier times.
UC Press publications by Peter Green
The "Histories" of Herodotus (forthcoming)
The Odyssey: A New Translation by Peter Green
The Iliad: A New Translation by Peter Green
Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 B.C.: A Historical Biography
Shadow of the Parthenon: Studies in Ancient History and Literature
Poems of Catullus: A Bilingual Edition
Poems of Exile: Tristia and the Black Sea Letters
Classical Bearings: Interpreting Ancient History and Culture
Laughter of Aphrodite: A Novel about Sappho of Lesbos
Hellenistic History and Culture
Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age