Prof. L. G. Pocock -a tribute

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 17

Prof. L. G. Pocock -a tribute

(By

PROFESSOR D. A. KIDD,

professor of classics

at the University of Canterbury.)

The death of Professor L. G. Pocock last Thursday has robbed the city of one of its more colourful characters. He is remembered by former students for his great vitality and for the enthusiasm which he brought to the teaching of classics. His vigorous style of translating and his lucid exposition of an author’s nuances made the ancient world alive and significant. He was primarily a historian, and his influence in this field may be seen in the career of one of his brightest pupils, Dr Ernst Badian, Harvard professor and one of the world’s leading ancient historians. Professor Pocock was always accessible and helpful to his students, and enjoyed meeting them long after they had left the university. They, in turn, wistfully recall the room behind the hall, the sofa on which they were invited to sit, flanked by one or two favourite terriers, and the air pungent with fumes of tobacco that the professor grew in his own garden. As a scholar, Professor Pocock was best known for his controversial theories on the authorship and inner significance of the "Odyssey,” which he argued with fierce vigour and conviction: in this his enthusiasm was often impatient of criticism, which he felt almost as a personal hurt.

. This quest had many interesting by-products that are not so well known, such as his discovery that the Styx was never a river, or his contribution to the problem of the axe-heads in “Odyssey XXI,” or his relation of the “stream of ocean” to the currents in the Straits of Gibraltar.

His earlier work in Roman history should also be recalled, in particular his excellent commentary on Cicero’s “In Vatinium,” which has not been superseded. He was a man with a varied range of interests. He had a natural flair for acting and a powerful voice whichi he knew how to use. He often organised readings of Greek plays, for which he cheerfully enlisted members of other departments, who enjoyed the fun of acting with him. And he produced “Twelfth Night”

for the Drama Society in 1935. Other activities included Rugby, climbing, motoring, and after he retired he was still to be seen on his bicycle or indulging in the new vogue of jogging. His death now, just when his former department is migrating to Dam, seems to accentuate a little more the end-of-an-era feeling that fills the old cloistered quadrangles.