Trustees Announce Recipient of the 2018 Athens Prize

Prof. Stroud reminiscing at Hill House in Corinth

The Trustees of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens have announced Ronald S. Stroud as the winner of the Athens Prize awarded for outstanding contributions to the advancement of knowledge of ancient Greece.

Professor Stroud is the Klio Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley.  He is one of the world’s leading Greek epigraphists, has served as a co-editor of the annual Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum since 1978, and is the author of numerous articles and four books on Greek inscriptions (Drakon’s Law of Homicide, The Axones and Kyrbeis of Drakon and Solon, The Athenian Grain Tax Law of 374/3 B.C., The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore [at Corinth]: The Inscriptions). He also is the co-author (with Nancy Bookidis) of The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: Topography and Architecture. As these book titles indicate, he is one of the very few scholars with major publications of material from both of the School’s main excavations at Ancient Corinth and the Athenian Agora.

At the School, he was a Regular Member (1959–60), School Secretary (1960–63), Whitehead Professor (1993–94), and Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classical Studies (1996–99). In 2013, he was given the Alumni/ae Association’s Aristeia Award for those “who have done the most over the years to support the School’s mission in teaching, research, archaeological exploration, and/or publication.” (Read a Q and A we released with Professor Stroud on that occasion.)

According to William T. Loomis, President of the Trustees, “Ron Stroud has been one of the most productive and influential Classical scholars of the past half century. In addition, he has been a mentor, supporter, and inspiration—but also an unsparing critic!—for dozens of students and younger scholars from all over the world who have been in Greece during his many sojourns at the School. His impact on the field has been immense.”

Professor Stroud will be honored at the American School’s Annual Gala on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, 6:00 p.m., at Capitale in New York City. The Gala will include a cocktail reception, silent auction, dinner, and awards ceremony. To inquire about purchasing a table, please contact Karen Volpi at 609-454-6810.

The American School of Classical Studies at Athens is the leading American teaching and research institution in Greece, dedicated to the advanced study of the archaeology, art, history, philosophy, language, and literature of Greece and Greek world.  Established in 1881 by a consortium of nine leading American universities, the School now serves students and scholars from nearly 200 affiliated colleges and universities, acting as a base for research and study in Greece. As part of its mission, the School also conducts ongoing excavations in the Athenian Agora and at Corinth, sponsors all other American-led excavations and surveys on Greek soil, and publishes its findings in School publications and through its website at www.ascsa.edu.gr.