Clyde Pharr

Clyde Pharr (17 February 1883 (or 1885)^[1] – 31 December 1972), was a Professor of Greek and Latin at Vanderbilt University from 1925–1949 and was head of the Classics department there for many years.^[2] After retiring from Vanderbilt, he was appointed Visiting Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin in 1950, was named Research Professor there in 1952, and Emeritus Research Professor of Classics in 1966. He died in Austin on December 31, 1972.^[3]

Early life

Pharr was born in Evans Point, Texas, the son of Samuel Milton Pharr and Josephine Fleming Pharr. He attended Saltillo High School and earned B.S. and A.B. degrees from East Texas Normal College (now Texas A&M University-Commerce) in 1903 and 1905, respectively.^[4] While in college, he became good friends with Sam Rayburn who later was Speaker of the United States House of Representatives for many years.^[5] Pharr continued his education at Yale University, earning another A.B. there in 1906. He was named an Abernathy Fellow at Yale and was granted his Ph.D. in 1910. Pharr subsequently studied at the University of Berlin and other European universities, as well as at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.^[6]

Career

Pharr's first faculty appointment was as Assistant Professor of Latin and Greek at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he served from 1912 to 1917. He then moved to Southwestern Presbyterian University before being appointed Associate Professor at Vanderbilt in 1924.^[7] Pharr developed a national reputation through his textbooks for Greek and Latin, some of which remain in print.^[8] Later, he turned his attention to Roman law and was general editor of The Theodosian Code, the translation and publication of which proved to be a long and winding road.^[9] However, the translation was well received.^[10]

Pharr had intended to oversee the translation into English of "the entire body of Roman law," but various problems prevented him from bringing this project to fruition.^[11] When he died in 1972, only the Codex Theodosianus translation and a volume of pre-Theodosian laws had been published.^[12]

Partial list of writings

Bibliography^[13]

• "A Year or More of Greek," 13 Classical Journal 364 (1918).
• Homeric Greek (1920) ;available at.^[14] (Revised by John Wright, 1985)
• "Ovid for Caesar," 21 Classical Journal 11 (1925).
• "The Testimony of Josephus to Christianity," 48 Journal of Philology 48 (1927).
• Aeneid I-VI (1930). (Reprinted with a new preface, 1998.)^[15]
• "The Interdiction of Magic in Roman Law," 63 Transactions of the American Philological Association 269 (1932).
• "Roman Legal Education" 34 Classical Journal 257 (1939).
• "The Text and Interpretation of the Theodosian Code, 6,4,21" 66 American Journal of Philology 50 (1945).
• "A Thirteenth Century Formula of Anathema," 66 American Journal of Philology 135 (1945).
• "The Text of Gratian's Decretum, 2.32.4.5" 66 American Journal of Philology 255 (1945).
• "The Text and Interpretation of the Theodosian Code, 7,20,2" 67 American Journal of Philology16 (1946).
• "A Project for the Translation of Roman Law," 42 Classical Journal" 141 (1946) (with Theresa S. Davidson and Mary B. Pharr).
• "Foreword: W.B. Owen & E.J. Goodspeed, Homeric Vocabularies. Greek and English Wordlists for the Study of Homer (1969).

References

1. LC authority file, citing SSDI for the 1883 date and preliminaries to his edition of Virgil's Aeneid for the 1885 date. The Social Security Death Index, as well as passport and draft board records give the 1883 date, which thus seems preferable. See "Family Search, under Clyde Pharr.
2. Linda Jones Hall, "Clyde Pharr, the Women of Vanderbilt, and the Wyoming Judge: The Story behind the Translation of the Theodosian Code in Mid-Century America," 8 Roman Legal Tradition 1, 3 (2012) .
3. Id. at 35, 39. See also Oscar W. Reinmuth, Ernest F. Haden, & Thomas J. Gibson III, "In Memoriam, Clyde Pharr," (University of Texas Faculty Memorials.)
4. For references to the history of East Texas Normal College, and of the normal school generally, see Timothy G. Kearley, "From Rome to the Restatement: S.P. Scott, Fred Blume, Clyde Pharr, and Roman Law in Early Twentieth-Century America," 108 Law Libr. J. 55, note 136 at 72 (2016), available at . See also Samuel Parsons Scott in Wikipedia.
5. For a picture of Pharr and Reyburn in the graduating class of 1903, see Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas,
6. Reinmuth, supra note 3 at 1.
7. Id.
8. Hall, supra note 2 at 2.
9. The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions (1952). For a detailed description of the project, see generally Hall, supra note 2. See also, Timothy Kearley, "Justice Fred Blume and the Translation of Justinian's Code," 99 Law Library Journal 525 (2007). See also Fred H. Blume in Wikipedia.
10. See for example, Reginald Parker, "Book Review" 6 Vanderbilt Law Review 965 (1953) and Leonard Oppenheim, "Book Review" 27 Tulane Law Review 501 (1953).
11. This series was to consist of: 1) Bruns, "Fontes Iuris Romani Antiqui"; 2) other inscriptional material; 3) the pre-Justinian collections of Roman jurisprudence; 4) the Theodosian Code and novels; 5) other pre-Justinian legislation; 6) the Corpus Juris Civilis; 7) the most important legal materials culled from classical authors such as Cicero, Pliny and Aulus Gellius; and 8) papyri material. Kearley, supra note 8 at 537, note 7.
12. Clyde Pharr, with Theresa Davidson, & Mary Brown Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels and the Sirmonidean Constitutions (1952); and Alan Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, & Frank Carl Bourne, Ancient Roman Statutes (1961).
13. Taken from Reinmuth, supra note 3 at 4-5.
14. "Homeric Greek: a book for beginners : Clyde Pharr : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive". Archive.org. 2014-12-31. Retrieved 2015-02-23.
15. Clyde Pharr (1 January 1998). Vergil's Aeneid: Books I-VI. Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers. ISBN 978-0-86516-433-8.