Emeritus Professor Robert Maltby

The following tribute has been contributed by Emma Stafford, Professor of Greek Culture.

Leeds Classics was saddened to learn of the death on 6 January of Robert Maltby, our former colleague (1987-2010) and Leeds’ Professor of Latin Philology (2000-2010).

Born in 1949 and raised in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, Robert went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1968, where he pursued both undergraduate and postgraduate studies.  His PhD A Comparative Study of the Language of Plautus and Terence was completed in 1975-6, after which he spent some time in Munich working on the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.  On his return to England, he was appointed Lecturer in the Department of Classical Studies at Sheffield, where he taught until its unfortunate closure in 1987.  He re-located to the School of Classics at the University of Leeds, where he became Professor of Latin Philology in 2000, remaining in post until the summer of 2010 when he took early retirement with a view to having more time for research.  Although he moved away from Leeds, to Kent with his wife Maryanne, he kept in touch with the department, and had indeed been due to give a paper at a conference in May in memory of another late colleague, Professor Malcolm Heath.

Robert will be especially remembered for the indispensable A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Leeds 1991).  However, his contribution to the study of Latin language and literature goes well beyond this, with around 10 books and 60 published papers encompassing interests in elegy and comedy as well as ancient etymological and linguistic theory.  Other work on etymology includes the volume edited with Joan Booth, What’s in a Name? The Significance of Proper Names in Classical Latin Literature (Swansea 2006).  His earliest monograph, however, was the modest Latin Love Elegy: Selected and Edited with Introduction and Notes (Bristol 1980), which was precursor to his career-spanning work on Latin elegy, notably the substantial (over 500 pages) Tibullus: Elegies, Text, Introduction and Commentary (Cambridge 2002), now the standard commentary on Books 1-2 of the Tibullan corpus, and the even more substantial (over 700 pages) sequel Book Three of the Corpus Tibullianum (Cambridge 2021), which advances the radical view that the collection is the work of a single anonymous author posing as several different poets.  Robert’s position as the ‘go to’ expert on Tibullus can also be seen in his contributions to editions/translations of the Elegies by Guy Lee (Leeds 1990) and A.M. Juster (Oxford’s World Classics 2012).  The interest in Roman comedy shown by Robert’s PhD was followed up in early papers on Terence (1983, 1985), later ones on Plautus (2000, 2004, 2012, 2014), and more recently on the fourth-century Aelius Donatus’ commentary on Terence (2014, 2019, 2021), while he is widely known for the Aris and Phillips Terence, Phormio: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford 2012).  A foray into pedagogical publication dates from around the same time, in collaboration with our late Leeds colleague Ken Belcher: Wiley’s Real Latin: Learning Latin from the Source (Maldon, MA and Oxford 2013) is based on the principle that authentic texts should be used from the outset in the teaching of Latin.  Most recently Robert had collaborated with Niall W. Slater on the Loeb volume Fragmentary Republican Latin Volume VI: Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Caecilius (Cambridge, MA 2022), and his single-authored Volume VII: Pacuvius. Minor Tragic Poets, Unidentified Dramatists (Cambridge, MA 2026) was published just a week after his death; new Loeb volumes of Catullus and Tibullus for which he was under contract will sadly not now be appearing.  A full listing of Robert’s publications, and summary of the major works, can be found in the 2024 Festschrift edited by Stratis Kyriakidis and Charilaos Michalopoulos, Secretis bene vivere silvis. Studies in Latin Literature in Honour of Robert Maltby (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) pp. xix-xlii.

Robert’s contribution to the discipline of Classics can also be seen in his organisation of the bi-annual Leeds International Classics Seminar (1994-2010), his editorship of Classical Quarterly (2000-05), and his supervision of many PhD students who have gone on to work in academia across Europe.  For the department at Leeds, though, perhaps his most long-lasting legacy can be seen in his championing of Erasmus exchanges from soon after the scheme’s inception in 1987.  He worked with the late Professor Stratis Kyriakidis to establish a link with the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and subsequently his former PhD students Andreas and Charilaos Michalopoulos at the Demokritos University of Thrace.  The latter institution recognised his work with the bestowal of an honorary Doctorate in 2019, the occasion being accompanied by a conference in Komotini, Latin Language and Literature: (Old) Limits and (New) Perspectives, in Robert’s honour, some of the papers going on to feature in the Festschrift mentioned above.  Alongside this northern Greek connection, Robert worked with Professor Guido Milanese to establish links with the Catholic University of Milan, and subsequently the University of Verona, an exchange in which Leeds students take part to this day.

Robert never lost his Yorkshire accent, which was an integral part of his amiable and mild-mannered persona.  Colleagues and students invariably comment on his intellectual curiosity, his kindness, quiet helpfulness, and the extent of his unassuming influence on their academic work – something to which I can testify myself despite working in the different field of Greek history.  When I was being interviewed for my job at Leeds in 1999, Robert smilingly prefaced his question with the comment ‘I really want to ask you if you have any thoughts on why Tibullus has a mistress called Nemesis – but I’ve been told to ask you about your teaching experience!’  Not being remotely familiar with Tibullus at that point, I was profoundly grateful to stick to interview protocol, but I was later prompted to look into what proved to be a very interesting question, and have twice attempted to provide an answer (in Robert’s 2006 edited volume and the Festschrift).

Robert will be much missed by the Classics community, and all who ever worked with him.