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Sterling Dow 
19 November 1903- 9 january 1995 

Begun in 1958 as Greek and Byzantine Studies by the initiative 
and enthusiasm of John J. Bilitz, then a graduate student in 
Byzantine history at Harvard University, after two years and 
four issues the enterprise foundered on the rocks of time and 
finance. It was rescued by the prompt intervention of our 
mentor Sterling Dow, late Hudson Professor of Archaeology at 
Harvard. Although the journal was dedicated from the start to 
the study of the continuity of the Greek tradition, Dow saw 
that the tradition could not have reached the Byzantine era 
without its transmission through the Graeco-Roman east. He 
therefore renamed the journal Greek, Roman and Byzantine 
Studies and summoned a conference to Dumbarton Oaks on 27 
June 1959, at which he reorganized its editorial staff and ad­
visory board and proposed its mission 

to demonstrate the vitality and continuity of the Greek 
tradition from the rise of Mycenae to the fall of Constan­
tinople, and beyond as far as the tradition can be followed, 
through scholarly studies of literature and art, archaeology 
and history, religion and philosophy, articles significant in 
scope and intelligible in style to everyone interested in any 
of the special fields or periods of the long and broad current 
of Hellenism. Research is to be meticulously documented, 
inter.Pretation reasonable and controlled, style clear and 
concrse. 

An example from his own hand is Conventions in Editing, 
published as Greek, Roman and Byzantine Scholarly Aid 2 
(1969), still a frequently sought supplement of this journal. His 
Festschrift, Studies Presented to Sterling Dow on his Eightieth 
Birthday (Greek, Roman and Byzantine Monograph 10 [1984]), 
contains his extensive bibliography, a biography and articles by 
forty-five of his students, colleagues, and friends. 

Although he declined to be designated chairman (or to accord 
that distinction to anyone else), he remained an active, 
encouraging member of the Advisory Board to the time of his 
death. The editors undertake to maintain his legacy and now in 
homage dedicate this volume of the journal to his memory. 

W.H.W.