Clyde Pharr


Clyde Pharr was an American classics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, Southwestern Presbyterian University, Vanderbilt University, and, finally, at the University of Texas at Austin.

Early life

Pharr was born in Saltillo, 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 in 1903 and 1905, respectively. He continued his education at Yale University, earning another A.B. there in 1906. He was named an Abernathy Fellow at Yale, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1910. From 1910–12, he had a fellowship at the American Institute of Archaeology in Athens, and while abroad he studied at the University of Berlin and other European universities.

Career

Pharr's first faculty appointment was as Assistant Professor of Latin and Greek at Ohio Wesleyan University where he served from 1912–17. From 1917–18 he was the legal advisor to a draft board; immediately after that he returned to academia at Southwestern Presbyterian University where he taught until 1924, with a break in the 1920–21 academic year to be an American Field Service Fellow at the University of Paris. He left Southwestern Presbyterian University in 1924 to become an Associate Professor at Vanderbilt. Pharr was on the Vanderbilt faculty from 1924–50 and was a full professor and head of the Department of Classics from 1928–50. Pharr developed a national reputation through his textbooks for Greek and Latin, some of which remain in print. Later, Pharr turned his attention to Roman law and was general editor of the first translation of the Codex Theodosianus into English. In 1950, he left Vanderbilt for the University of Texas at Austin where he was a visiting professor from 1950-1953, Research Professor of Roman Law from 1953-1966, and Professor Emeritus of Classical Languages from 1966-1972.
The Theodosian Code translation was very favorably received and has been thought likely to be the only translation into English ever made of this important document. Pharr had intended to oversee translation into English of "the entire body of Roman law", including the Codex Justinianus, using a draft by Justice Fred H. Blume as its basis, but various problems prevented him from bringing this project to fruition. When Pharr died in 1972 only the Codex Theodosianus translation and a volume of pre-Theodosian laws had been published.
Exactly one week after his wife's death, Pharr died in an Austin hospital on December 31, 1972.

Partial list of writings

Bibliography