D. R. Shackleton Bailey


David Roy Shackleton Bailey was a British scholar of Latin literature who spent his academic life teaching at the University of Cambridge, the University of Michigan, and Harvard. He is best known for his work on Horace, and Cicero, especially his commentaries and translations of Cicero's letters.

Background

Bailey was born in Lancaster, Lancashire, the youngest of four children born to John Henry Shackleton Bailey and Rosmund Maud. After being educated at Lancaster Royal Grammar School, where his mathematician father was headmaster, Shackleton Bailey read first Classics and then Oriental Studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, before spending the years of the Second World War at Bletchley Park, the home of the British code-breaking efforts.

Career

He returned to Caius as a fellow in 1944, and in 1948 obtained a lectureship in Tibetan at Cambridge University. In 1955 he migrated to Jesus College, Cambridge, where, as Director of Studies in Classics, he began publishing the long series of books and articles on Latin authors that would occupy the rest of his life. He spent four more years at Caius from 1964 to 1968, this time serving as Bursar and Senior Bursar. This time, his move was reputedly because Sir Denys Page, Master of Jesus, refused to allow Shack to have a cat-flap installed in his ancient oak door. In 1968 he crossed the Atlantic, specifically to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor; and in 1976 he moved to Harvard University, first as Professor of Greek and Latin, then as Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature. He twice served as the editor of Harvard Studies in Classical Philology. In 1988 he retired from Harvard and became an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan, teaching until 2002.
In 1958 he earned the double honour of a fellowship of the British Academy and a Litt.D. degree from Cambridge; he also held an honorary Litt.D. from Dublin University, awarded in 1984. He was elected a Fellow of the American [Academy of Arts and Sciences] in 1975 and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1977. He was a member of the American Philological Association, which awarded him the Goodwin Award of Merit in 1978; a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters; an honorary member of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies; and an honorary fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
The bulk of his scholarly work focused on Latin philology and Roman history and prosopography. In retirement he prepared many editions for the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard University Press, including those of Martial, Valerius Maximus, Statius, and the correspondence of Cicero.

Personal life and death

In 1967 he married Hilary Ann Bardwell, the former wife of the British author Kingsley Amis; this marriage was dissolved in 1975. In 1994 he married Kristine Zvirbulis. He was extremely fond of cats and of classical music.
He died of Alzheimer's disease in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on 28 November 2005.

Publications (selected)

  • ed. Cicero: Letters to Atticus 7 v..
  • ed. Cicero: Epistulae ad familiares 2 v..
  • trans. Cicero’s letters to his friends.
  • Cicero’s Letters to Atticus 2 v..
  • Profile of Horace.
  • ed. Anthologia Latina I fasc. 1: Libri Salmasiani aliorumque carmina.
  • ed. Q. Horati Flacci Opera.
  • ed. and trans. Cicero: Philippics.
  • ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis Epistulae ad Atticum 2 v..
  • ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis Epistulae ad Familiares.
  • ed. M. Tulli Ciceronis Epistulae ad Q. Fratrem, ad M. Brutum, Commentariolum petitionis, fragmenta epistularum.
  • ed. M. Fabii Quintiliani Declamationes minores.
  • Onomasticon to Cicero’s speeches.
  • trans. Cicero. Back from Exile: Six Speeches upon his Return.
  • ed. M. Annaei Lucani De bello civili libri X.
  • ed. M. Valerii Martialis epigrammata.
  • Homoeoteleuton in Latin dactylic verse.
  • Onomasticon to Cicero’s letters.
  • Onomasticon to Cicero’s treatises.
  • Selected classical papers.
  • ed. and trans. Valerius Maximus: Memorable doings and sayings 2 v..
  • ed. and trans. Cicero: Letters to friends 3 v..
  • ed. and trans. Statius: Silvae.
  • ed. and trans. Statius: Thebaid Books 1-7.
  • ed. and trans. Statius: Thebaid Books 8-12; Achilleid.
  • ed. and trans. Quintilian: The Lesser Declamations 2 v..