Tenney Frank (May 19, 1876 – April 3, 1939) was a prominent American

ancient historian Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term "historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific to ...

and

classical scholar Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

. He studied many aspects of

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome is the Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of Rome, founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the Fall of the Western Roman Empire, collapse of the Western Roman Em ...

, for instance its economy, imperialism, demographics and epigraphy.

Biography

Tenney Frank earned his A.B. at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

in 1898 and his A.M. the following year. Frank went on to receive his Ph.D. at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

in 1903. Frank taught at

Bryn Mawr College Bryn Mawr College ( ; Welsh language, Welsh: ) is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as a ...

as a Professor of Latin from 1904 until 1919, when he moved to the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

. At Bryn Mawr Frank wrote and published his influential study ''Roman Imperialism'' in 1914. Frank believed that Rome's

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

stemmed from a desire to keep peace in the Mediterranean world by preventing the rise of any rival power. Frank's other work focused on classical literature, with articles on

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

, Curiatius Maternus,

Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro ...

, and

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...

, among others. In 1932 he gave the British Academy's Master-Mind Lecture, on Cicero. He wrote periodically for the ''American Historical Review'', including a paper on the demise of the various ancient Italian peoples that comprised the

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

ethnicity in

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (12 or 13 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in Caesar's civil wa ...

's day. Arguing that Roman expansion brought in masses of foreign peoples and slaves that over time changed the ethnic make-up of the Roman populace and contributed to the empire's ruin. He worked on Latin inscriptions, including the

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

from the

Forum Romanum A forum (Latin: ''forum'', "public place outdoors", : ''fora''; English : either ''fora'' or ''forums'') was a public square in a municipium, or any civitas, of Ancient Rome reserved primarily for the vending of goods; i.e., a marketplace, along ...

in Rome, and on Roman construction and the Servian Wall of Rome. His work on the Roman

economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

was a seminal study of the economy and trade in the Roman world. Frank was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

in 1927 and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

in 1935. He married Grace Edith Mayer in 1907. Of Swedish ancestry, Frank was influenced by his agrarian roots. He was also multilingual and had a great facility for languages, including Scandinavian tongues. At Johns Hopkins, Frank trained

Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton Thomas Robert Shannon Broughton, FBA (; 17 February 1900 – 17 September 1993) was a Canadian classical scholar and leading Latin prosopographer of the twentieth century. He is especially noted for his definitive three-volume work, '' Magistr ...

, with whom he collaborated on his studies of the Roman economy. A bibliography of Frank's work may be found in ''The American Journal of Philology'' 60.3 (1939). Frank died on April 3, 1939, in

Oxford, England Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

while serving as a visiting professor at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

. While in Oxford Frank was reportedly preparing for publication a new work entitled "Rome and Italy of the Empire". This appeared posthumously as Volume 5 of ''An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome''.

Works

* (1903). ''A Stichometric Scholium to the Medea of Euripides'', The University of Chicago Press. * (1904). ''Attraction of Mood in Early Latin: A Dissertation'', Press of the New Era Printing Company. * (1920)
''An Economic History of Rome to the End of the Republic''
Johns Hopkins University Press ev. ed. 1927 * (1922)
''Vergil, a Biography''
Henry Holt & Company ussell & Russell, 1965 * (1923)
''A History of Rome''
Henry Holt & Company. * (1924)
"Latin Quantitative Speech as Affected by Immigration"
''The American Journal of Philology'', Vol. 45, No. 2 (1924), pp. 161–175. * (1924). ''Roman Buildings of the Republic'', American Academy in Rome. * (1928). ''Catullus and Horace'', Henry Holt & Company ussell & Russell, 1965 * (1930). ''Life and Literature in the Roman Republic'', Sather Classical Lectures, University of California Press
Sixth Printing
1971. * (1932). ''Aspects of Social Behavior in Ancient Rome'', Harvard University Press ooper Square Publishers, 1969 * (1933 & 1940). ''An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome'', Johns Hopkins University Press. ** Vol. I: ''Rome and Italy of the Republic''. ** Vol. V: ''Rome and Italy of the Empire''. Other *

References

External links

* Tenney Frank at Database of Classical Scholar

* *
Works by Tenney Frank
at

Hathi Trust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries. Its holdings include content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digit ...

Works by Tenney Frank
at

JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...

Professor Tenney Frank on Agriculture in Early Latium

several journal articles by Tenney Frank {{DEFAULTSORT:Frank, Tenney American historians American classical scholars 1876 births 1939 deaths People from Clay Center, Kansas Classical scholars of Bryn Mawr College Classical scholars of Johns Hopkins University Scholars of Latin literature American people of Swedish descent Bryn Mawr College faculty Corresponding fellows of the British Academy Members of the American Philosophical Society

Biography

Works

References

Further reading

External links