BROWN, Truesdell Sparhawk. Philadelphia, PA 21.3.1906 — Houston, TX 13.1.1992. U.S. Classical Philologist and Historian, wrote studies on the historians of Alexander and Megasthenes. Professor in Los Angeles. Son of Carleton Fairchild Brown and Emily Truesdell. Studies at Haverford 1922-23 and Harvard (A.B. 1928, A.M. 1929), in 1932-33 further studies at Innsbruck under Lehmann-Haupt. Ph.D. 1947 Columbia. In 1929-32 and 1933-37 Instructor in Ancient History at University of Colorado. In 1940-47 Instructor, then Assistant Professor at University of Texas. In 1947-73 taught at University of California in Los Angeles, starting as Lecturer, in the end as Professor of History. Married 1924 Ruth Anna Edgar. Died after a brief illness.
Brown was a classicist, specialist of Greek historical literature, without Indological interests. He is taken up here, because a great part of his work dealt with those authors, through whom the classical knowledge of India is preserved to us.
Publications: Diss. publ. as Onesicritus. A Study in Hellenistic Historiography. 8+196 p. University of California Publications in History 39. Berkeley – Los Angeles 1949.
– “Clitarchus”, AJPh 71, 1950, 134-155; “The Reliability of Megasthenes”, AJPh 76, 1955, 18-33; “The Merits and Weaknesses of Megasthenes”, Phoenix 11, 1957, 11-24; “A Megasthenes Fragment on Alexander and Mandanis”, JAOS 80, 1960, 133-135; “Suggestions for a vita of Ctesias of Cnidus”, Historia 27, 1978, 1-19; “Aristodicus of Cyme and the Branchidae”, AJPh 99, 1978, 64-78; and other articles (altogether 35) and a few reviews on classical philology, especially on historical literature.
– The Greek Historians. 208 p. Lexington, Mass. – Toronto – London 1973.
Sources: S. Burstein in Briggs (ed.), Biogr. Dict. of N. Am. Class. 1994, 66-68; *bibliography in Panhellenica: Essays in Ancient History and Historiography in Honor of T.S.B. Lawrence, KS 1980, 11f.; Wikipedia.
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