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 (1869–1941), Professor of English, and Emily Truesdell (d. 1917). 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 1942-44 Instructor at U.S. Naval Flight Preparatory School in Austin). In 1947-73 taught at University of California in Los Angeles, starting as Lecturer, 1948 Assistant Professor, 1951 Associate Professor and finally 1956-73 Professor of History. Married 1924 Ruth Anna Edgar (1905–1990), two sons and one daughter. 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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