| Memorial Service for
Michael H. Jameson |
| Michael H. Jameson
15 October 1924 – 18 August 2004 |
 |
Memorial Church
Stanford University
20 October 2004
|
The Jameson family thanks all those who participated in the memorial service, as well as the friends who wrote before
and after the service. Special thanks are due to Mike’s Stanford colleague Maud Gleason, who worked over a period of two
months on the preparation of all aspects of the service.
Program and Selected Texts
Click on one of the highlighted parts of the program to see (part of) the text that was spoken.
| Organ Prelude | Robert HuwMorgan, University Organist |
| Welcome | Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, Senior Associate Dean for Religious Life |
| Family Remembrance | Nick Jameson |
| Reflections by Stanford Colleagues | Mark Edwards
Ian Morris |
O Maria, tu dulcis
Chiara Margarita Cozzolani | Ruth Escher, soprano
John Dornenburg, viola da gamba
Robert HuwMorgan, continuo organ |
Remembrances by
Colleagues From
Other Universities | Jim Dengate and Christina Dengate, University of
Illinois
Mariko Sakurai, University of Tokyo
Ron Stroud, University of California at Berkeley |
Bist du bei mir
Johann Sebastian Bach
or Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel | Ruth Escher
John Dornenburg
Robert HuwMorgan |
| Reading of Brief Tributes | Kyle Lakin
Trinity Jackman
Bill Tieman
Margaret Butler |
| Closing Words | Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann |
| Organ Postlude | Robert HuwMorgan |
Welcome by Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann
Job teaches, “When a wise person dies, how can he be replaced? There is a source for silver, and a
place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth and copper is smelted from the rock. But
where can wisdom be found? Where is the source of understanding? When a wise person dies, how can he
be replaced?” (Job28:1–2, 12)
Michael Jameson was a consummate professor, chairman, dean and excavation director. His wisdom
influenced an academic discipline as well as students and colleagues. But for all his wisdom and
learning, he will be remembered best as a friend—a man with deep learning but no academic snobbery,
a tireless reader of works-in-progress and writer of letters of recommendation, the best possible
mentor. Michael Jameson embodied the Talmudic understanding, “from all of my students I have
learned”. This gathering in his honor is our attempt at reciprocity—a recognition of all that
Michael Jameson’s students, colleagues, family, and friends learned from him.
Michael Jameson pioneered excavating underwater. He embodied the Proverbs text, “As in water, face
answers to face, so in the heart of human to human.” Face answered to face in his every
interaction—face answered to face with Greek villagers, with whom he schmoozed and broke bread. It
is no surprise that his most famous find came from drinking with the locals. Face answered to face
with colleagues, who were preparing to celebrate his 80th birthday this month in Athens celebrating
his contributions to the field. Face answered to face with his beloved Virginia, who after nearly 6
decades of shared exploration, excavation and affirmation, could appear in her yellow raincoat with
droplets of water on it and elicit Mike’s reflection that she still recalls the “beauty of a spring
flower.”
This afternoon, we gather to honor and thank Michael Jameson for all that this steadfast, loyal,
slightly whimsical, irreverent, and devoted man brought forth. Although he was not a religious man,
as a student of religious ritual, Mike would understand that what we are engaged in today is a
ritual of closure, an acknowledgement and an appreciation of what he gave to this community, to his
family, to his discipline and to his friends. We will hear several tributes and invite others of you
who have anecdotes and reflections to share them later as we mingle at the Faculty Club.
Family Remembrance by Nick Jameson
Several weeks ago, my Dad told me about an idea he had for a short story, in which a man fakes his
own death so that he can sneak into his memorial service and hear all the wonderful things his
friends and relatives say about him. Well, he pulls off the fake death all right, but once he’s
safely disguised and ensconced in the back row of his memorial service, he is appalled to hear
friend after friend after relative after person he’s never met in his life get up and say the most
appalling things about him. At which point he comes storming down the aisle, raining the wrath of
the—as Monty Python would say—Not Quite Dead upon all and sundry.
Remembering this, I was tempted to get up here and say a bunch of rotten things about my dear old
Dad, in the hope that he might grace us with his presence, but Dad was nothing if not a realist, so I
shall stick to the truth. Which, as we know, is that Michael Hamilton Jameson was a wonderful and
remarkable man.
The original sense of humor evident in that story may surprise some of you who knew him as a very
serious scholar and teacher. And in fact he was a serious man who did not suffer fools gladly, and
it was a source of some annoyance to him that by infecting me at an early age with his secret love
of humor, he turned me into the court jester of the family. By making me a Pogo fan, he created a
monster who for weeks at a time would communicate with him only in the dialect of the Okeefenokee.
As a result of enamoring me of his favorite radio program, the Goon Show, with its cast of insane
characters, he found himself sitting down to dinner with all thirty-two of them every night. And I’m
sure he kicked himself for giving me Brendan Behan’s autobiography when I’d answer his questions
about school with colorful epithets and rebel songs from the North of Ireland.
He was keen to have me follow in his footsteps and be a brilliant academic; unfortunately his love
of music was contagious, and I quit high school to become a rock and roller. I was reminded last
month of this devotion to music while sorting through some of his boxes. I discovered three hundred
cassette tapes of recordings he’d made off the radio, all meticulously numbered and cataloged,
albeit in his indecipherable handwriting. Now I don’t feel odd for having spent years doing the same
thing. Perhaps there’s a gene for that type of activity.
I guess I should clarify that Mike and his wife of 58 years, Virginia, had four sons, of which I’m
the eldest, followed by Anthony, John and Dave, in chronological order. Although we spent
most of our youth in Philadelphia, my brothers and I were fortunate to have spent many years in
Europe as a result of Dad’s work, most memorably living in Italy for 15 months and another 15 in
Greece. This was undoubtedly a cause of my coming to share Dad’s love of languages and dialects; in
fact, I now make my living as an actor, playing characters who speak in a wide variety of accents.
Dad enjoyed this, and, being half-Jewish, was, I believe, secretly proud that his eldest, though not
a doctor, played one on TV quite regularly.
Some of the best times I had with my Dad in recent years were spent enjoying things peculiar to
our tastes, such as spending hours watching Chinese soap operas (sans subtitles) and listening to
recordings of the Peking street vendors he heard in his boyhood, which was spent in Peking. Once
again, this became an addiction for me.
In addition to his love of other languages, Dad was also very precise in his use of his native
tongue. About a year ago he said “You know, Nick, I’m not going to Pass Away. Nor am I going to Pass
On. And I’m definitely not going to Pass. (He said this last with clear disapproval of its
ungrammatical and illiterate sound.) “I’m not going to do any of those things. I’m going to Die.” I
said something along the lines of “Well, Dad, that’s certainly a reasonable choice of terminology.
It follows Strunk and White’s admonition to prefer the simple and direct to the prolix phrase; it
would please Korzybski with its unambiguity, and it’s Socratic in its acceptance of one’s ultimate
fate. However, I hope you won’t be doing it any time soon.”
Unfortunately for us, he did do it sooner than we would have liked. And so here we are, Mike, to
say we love you and we miss you very much; and, speaking for myself, if you have a problem with
anything I’ve said, please feel free to come storming down the aisle to set me straight.
Reflection by Mark Edwards, Stanford University
Since I came to Stanford 36 years ago, I have attended memorial services for a number of Classics Department
scholars who enjoyed an international and long-enduring reputation: those of T. B. L. Webster, Hermann Fränkel, Lionel
Pearson, and most recently Toni Raubitschek. Now Michael Jameson joins that distinguished company.
In the mid-1970’s the Stanford Classics Department faced a host of problems. From its group of senior professors,
Brooks Otis had left for North Carolina in 1970, John Herington left for Yale in 1972, Lionel Pearson retired in 1973,
and T.B.L. Webster died in 1974. This left Toni Raubitschek and myself as the only full professors in a Department
with a graduate program which had been, up to that point, highly regarded. To make matters worse, in the spring of 1974
three assistant professors were denied tenure, and morale among the graduate students dropped very low indeed. There was
an urgent need for immediate rebuilding.
With his usual resourcefulness, Toni suggested that we should approach Michael Jameson, who was then at Penn.
Even to a literary person like me the name invoked a famous and somewhat daunting figure. Everyone at that time knew of
his discovery of the Themistocles Decree (besides in the usual classical organs, I had seen it written up in
Scientific American). But of course we made overtures and brought Mike and Virginia out to Stanford to meet the
Department and the Stanford authorities. All went very well; I was nervous about whether our invitation to join us
would be accepted—we were a long way from the East coast—but I was heartened by Mike’s obvious awareness of the change
from the cold, damp slush of Philadelphia in January to bright, sunny days in the Bay Area. I became almost optimistic
when, before his departure, I drove him and Virginia up to stay for a few days with friends of theirs in Tiburon, where
the view across the bay was absolutely at its best. It worked, and Mike accepted our offer and came here in 1976. In
the same year we made another full professorial appointment, that of Marsh McCall, and the Department was back on its
feet and moving forward. I remember we gleefully sent out a printed card to all the Classics Departments we could
think of announcing our achievement, and the Dean took me out to dinner to celebrate.
Mike’s arrival meant a great deal to us. In the first place, he brought us honor, for his distinction in
epigraphy, history, and archaeology. His connections with practical archaeology were particularly important, as its
former representatives here, Hazel Hanson and Ted Doyle, had died in 1962 and 1966 respectively, and despite their
immense knowledge of ancient art Toni and Isabelle Raubitschek were not personally involved with excavations. We
already had the funding to send people to Greece and Rome: For that purpose we had the Fund set up in memory of Ted
Doyle in 1968; and in 1972 we had gotten our hands on the Tresidder Fund for Stanford in Greece, both of which Mike
made use of later on when he began involving our students in his archaeological projects.
Besides this, Mike’s interests, like Toni’s, covered a very wide range—not only Greek history, epigraphy and
archaeology but Greek religion and many aspects of Greek literature, especially epic and tragedy. In a small department
like ours this was essential, both for undergraduate and graduate teaching. For nearly thirty years Mike’s presence was
immensely valuable to our graduates, our undergraduates, to his colleagues, and in our departmental counsels. And
beyond our local concerns, he was always willing to play his part in wider university activities, such as lecturing in
the various freshman programs and serving on administrative committees, including a prestigious advisory committee to
the Dean of Humanities and Sciences.
One of the many good things about Mike’s presence in our Department was his excellent relationship with Toni
Raubitschek. Not all Toni’s colleagues found him easy to get along with, but Mike not only had no problem but took
trouble to make the most of Toni’s immense store of knowledge about archaeology and archaeologists, past and present.
Often in recent years I would go into the Emeriti office and find them deep in conversation, and have a chance to hear
anecdotes about giants of the past. And Mike took the trouble to collect some of Toni’s reminiscences on a cassette
recorder. I am sure the easy collaboration between them over the 25-odd years they were in this Department together
contributed a lot to the research and vision of them both, and of course was passed along to generations of graduate
students. In a way this association was celebrated in the big gathering of alumni and other scholars which Mike
organized here for Toni’s 70th birthday in 1983, and the publication of the papers in 1985.
Mike’s other colleagues benefitted too. A few days ago I had a message from Susan Treggiari, his colleague here
for many years, in which she said:
“What I remember most is his generous interest in other people (shown in his and Virginia’s hospitality to current
students, former students, colleagues), the care which he took before pronouncing judgement, his inability to blow his
own trumpet. I remembered his impact on Greek history from the time when�I was an undergraduate, but the full extent of
his work was only gradually revealed to me when I became his colleague, and the tributes which poured out at his death
have told me many things I did not know. He was a great scholar and a great human being. I am grateful for the support,
kindness and understanding and intellectual stimulus he gave me.”
I particularly remember one of my own personal encounters with Mike’s scholarship. After I had drafted an
account of the pictures on the Shield of Achilles for the Cambridge Iliad Commentary, I asked him to look it over, as
there was a certain amount there about farming and herding, in which of course I knew he was an expert. It came back,
to my relief, with only the suggestion that I might incorporate a note he attached, which he had obviously made a long
time before—it came on a flimsy scrap of paper, partly typed and partly handwritten, both in English and in Greek, and
as as usual with Mike’s handwriting it wasn’t easy to determine which was which. I eventually made out that it was the
insight that the word choanos in the description of Hephaestus’ forge, previously taken by commentators, translators
and LSJ to mean “crucible”, really meant “the nozzle through which the blast of air is forced”. The evidence he quoted
showed that this is obviously right, and I gratefully incorporated the point into my commentary, knowing that this
would surely be a permanent advance of our knowledge.
A few nights after I returned from England and heard of Mike’s death I happened to watch a TV program about the
delights of visiting modern Greece. It reminded me of all the pleasure I had had there, and it made me feel how happy
Mike must have been to have spent so much time in that lovely country—as well as in England, Japan, Russia, and the
other countries he had visited. I hoped that he had also found a lot of enjoyment in his years at Stanford, where
whatever we had been able to give to him, he has very amply repaid. His legacy will always be with us.
Remembrances by Jim and Christina Dengate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jim Dengate:
I first met Mike Jameson in the Fall of 1963. Unfortunately, death took him shortly before the fortieth anniversary of
the day when he introduced me to my future wife Christina. But not before he had finished those parts of the Halieis
excavations that only he could write while leaving drafts of the rest of his contributions in a state that can be finished.
We wish he had lived to complete it all. Mike’s clear thinking and solid grasp of the facts will be much missed by those
of us working on the Halieis excavation publications. Mike was my professor, mentor, and friend whom I shall continue to
miss. Mike first introduced me to Christina, my future wife. Later we met again at the American School of Classical
Studies in Athens and would ultimately become one of the numerous American School matches—one encouraged by Mike and
Virginia who were there that same year in 1965.
Mike was a real pioneer in two areas of archaeological research: shallow water archaeology and
regional site survey. He and Virginia had started work in the southern Argolid with their
epigraphical and topographical survey of the Hermionid while they were students at the American
School in 1950. Beginning with a traditional approach, Mike then went on to extend the archaeological
survey to all periods of human activity and to try to interpret the evidence for human interaction
with the environment since the Southern Argolid was first inhabited by human beings. In 1958 Mike
discovered a palaeolithic flaked tool, the first to be identified from the Argolid and with Percy
Bailor investigated pleistocene caves in the region near where he had found that tool. Mike worked
with Greek and French colleagues in that study, beginning a pattern that would continue in his later
archaeological work. Also in his later excavations Mike always tried to include the training of
future Greek archaeologists as well as those from North America and other European countries.
Mike encouraged Tom Jacobsen to begin excavations at the neolithic Franchthi cave, which
subsequently produced unprecedented mesolithic and paleolithic remains deep below the surface of the
cave. The Stanford survey would discover a number of other stone-age sites in the area. The three
survey volumes—with the fourth expected shortly—are a testament to Mike’s early support of site
survey archeology and to the value of this kind of regional approach both archaeologically and
anthropologically.
When Mike and Virginia first investigated Halieis they observed that about a quarter of the best
land for habitation inside the fortification walls was now under the waters of Porto Cheli bay. In
1965 Mike invited divers who had worked in shipwreck archaeology, David Owen and Frank Frost, to
begin to record the visible remains of the town in the sea along the modern shore. The divers found
very limited visibility in the harbor whenever they moved around in the bottom mud and silt.
Therefore, through the years Mike adapted innovations in deep sea ship wreck exploration to better
record the remains in the shallow waters of Porto Cheli bay. The Galeazzi nozzle allowed mud to be
hosed off the wall foundations while the invention of underwater paper allowed us to write permanent
records as we excavated.
In the end, we were able to excavate correctly gridded trenches in five centimeter passes with
measurements and elevations just about as accurate as those done with traditional land excavation
techniques. The discovery of the temple of Apollo in the bay about a half kilometer north of Halieis
benefited greatly from Mikes willingness every season to adapt new and better recording techniques.
As an excavation director Mike always worked at every job from lifting heavy irrigation pipes to
digging a trench himself. He was the sole excavator of the Industrial Terrace just below the Halieis
acropolis in 1962 and 1965 but still managed to fill in for others in their trenches when sickness
kept them out of the field. In 1966 and thereafter he agreed to substitute and spend more of his
time with the directorial responsibilities. Still he came to the field every day that he could and
continued to excavate daily during all the undersea work.
Mike had a very active mind, constantly thinking up new questions and possible answers. This
sometimes made him impatient with the slow day-to-day work of field archaeology. He would keep his
excavation records but also wander around picking up unusual or interesting things nearby. Although
this made assimilating his finds into the excavation records difficult, his discoveries outside the
trenches would often turn out to be important. For example he found fragments (and later we
excavated whole ones) of partially baked bricks in the Sanctuary of Apollo. We still have not
completely interpreted these strange objects and they remain very unusual at an ancient Greek site.
Post-excavation study found Mike’s agile mind producing idea after idea. He would prune some,
accept others provisionally, and change them yet again when new evidence was found. Mike continued
to teach me and help me through the years, and I will miss interactions with him. What Halieis
publications of his remain in preliminary form will appear in print. The individual stamp of
perfection that he always gave to his scholarship may be missing. But Mike’s inspiring leadership
will endure.
Christina Dengate:
I first met Mike Jameson in the Spring of 1965, when he came to my college to give a lecture about
his new excavation in Greece. I was introduced to him and in turn he introduced me to one of his
graduate students, Jim Dengate. At the time I cared only about Greek literature and had little
interest in archaeology. The lecture seemed to be all about mud brick and the slides showed bleak
windswept trenches. “Who would want to do that kind of work?”, I thought.
Little did I know that I had just seen my future—the site that would occupy me for decades to
come, my husband to be, and Mike, teacher and friend for nearly forty years.
A few months later, I was a student at the American School in Athens and there was Mike, a
visiting professor for a year, and there was that graduate student. The following summer, Mike
invited me to join the excavation at Halieis, ostensibly to inventory the finds and tend the
excavation house, in reality because he was playing cupid to a young couple.
The connection continued. Jim and I returned to Halieis for several seasons after our marriage and
both of us became increasingly involved in working with the excavation material. What most impressed
me about Mike as archaeologist was that he never asked anyone to do a job that he wasn’t willing to
do himself. Which explains the early Halieis photographs. Mike and Jim (who had a camera and a
tripod) undertook the photographic record of the small finds. A typical picture of pottery sherds
shows one leg of the tripod, a hand holding a crumpled sheet of tin foil to cast light, a foot on a
beautifully detailed terrazzo floor, and, in the middle distance, some black spots, the sherds
themselves. As more funding became available to the excavation, actual photography students were
brought in and the pictures improved. But had the excavation continued on the shoestring budget of
its earliest days, Mike would have continued to pitch in, improvise, and make do.
Up until just a few weeks before his death, Mike and I were corresponding about the chapters he was
writing for the Halieis series. The last chapter he completed contains a brilliant clarification of
the confused data about the changing sea level at Halieis in antiquity. This was a difficult subject,
comprising observations from various people at various times, full of technical language and some
contradictions. It is typical of Mike that he was able to spin this straw into gold, to take the
muddle and produce a concise useful statement about the findings. It is also impressive that his
work near the end of his life was as crisp and clear as all that went before.
Mike was not only a fine scholar but also a kind and responsible human being. I should be very
disillusioned about the academic world in general. After all, I have been a faculty wife for
thirty-some years and have seen much feuding, and back-stabbing, much arrogance and pomposity among
those who supposedly lead the ideal contemplative life. But Mike rose above this. He was never
pretentious, always egalitarian (“Please don’t call me Professor or Doctor Jameson,” he told me.
“I’m Mike.”) He did not manipulate for power or position, he worked hard at teaching well, he gave
steadfast support to his students. This quotation is often applied to venerable scholars—Mike is one
of those who truly lived it. “Gladly would he learn and gladly teach.”
Reading of Brief Tributes
Paul Harvey, Pennsylvania State University:
Mike Jameson was a scholar of breadth, unusual vision, and profound integrity. He made his
prominent mark not only on several significant fields of Greek history, literature, archaeology, and
epigraphy, but also on the profession in general by his administrative expertise. Perhaps most
importantly, he was, for me (as, I know, for many others), one of the most inspiring
scholar-teachers I have ever met.
Jody Maxmin, Stanford University:
My first sight of Mike was in the Ashmolean Library as Thanksgiving 1971 approached. He was on
sabbatical, living with Virginia in north Oxford on Hamilton Avenue, and I was in my first year of
graduate school. With his trademark radar, he managed to detect who was far from home, who needed an
invitation to Thanksgiving, who could use an introduction to a group of other freaks overseas. That
Thanksgiving gathering was key to getting to know Mike and Virginia, as well as a wonderful group of
people from all over the world, people I continue to be in touch with, and the first of many times
in which Mike and Virginia offered Greek hospitality (philoxenia) no matter where they were, whether
in north Oxford, West Philadelphia, Mike’s office at the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge or
Palo Alto.
Robert Parker, Oxford University:
Many of those who have paid tribute to Michael Jameson’s scholarship have stressed its range, the
way in which he brought together information and ideas and approaches from many disciplines and
sub-disciplines. What seemed to me so exemplary in him was the taken-for-grantedness, so to speak,
of this multidisciplinarity: he did not make a great issue of it, and when faced with a sacrificial
calendar he just seemed to regard it as obvious that one should be equally interested in, for
instance, the technical problems of establishing readings, the situation of the stockrearers who
supplied the animals, and the nature of sacrifice as a means of establishing communication between
man and god.
Riet van Bremen, University of London:
I met Mike Jameson and Virginia for the first time in the summer of 1984 .... He and Virginia
invited me over to their small terraced Cambridge house and I remember well sitting outside in the
tiny courtyard eating watercress sandwiches. They were extremely nice to me and, without hesitating,
he offered me the use of his office on the Stanford campus during my visit (while he was still in
Europe). I was extremely grateful for his kindness to a young, unknown colleague.
Victor Davis Hanson, The Hoover Institution, Stanford University:
Mike was a masterful prose stylist, something often not recognized in the academic world. His
articles are beautifully written, and he taught me from his style that scholars should seek to write
well. He did, and that too has made a profound impression on dozens of his students. I will miss
him, both his wide-ranging conversations and his perfectly crafted prose.
Cynthia Patterson, Emory University:
It has taken some time for me to think of Mike as “Mike”. To a young graduate student entering the
Ancient History Program at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, he was Professor Jameson, whose
seminars were rigorous, demanding, and a bracing introduction to the distinctive Jameson brand of
ancient history, informed by language and literature, archaeology and anthropology. The classes were
memorable—but so were the Jameson parties at the grand house in Germantown with its large
hospitable rooms and its very special hostess. I remember one evening in particular: In the middle
of a conversation about Plato with my husband Richard (a graduate student in Philosophy) Professor
Jameson asked whether he knew the work of a certain Plato scholar from a central Armenian university
who had published a “Complete System of Dispensational Truth”. Our director of graduate studies then
found the book on the shelf and began to “perform” the Armenian text with dramatic verve and energy.
It was all or mostly fake, of course—and one of the funniest stand up comic acts I have seen.
Martin Ostwald, Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania:
I remember an excited telephone call from him one dreary Sunday afternoon in February of 1960,
which began with the question: “What would you say if I told you that I have Themistocles’
mobilization decree for the battle of Salamis in front of me?” My expression of disbelief and doubt
resulted in an invitation to come right over to his house to join him in looking at a document that
he had seen in Troezen the previous summer and copied for further study at home. Within half an hour
I was at his house in Rosemont. After we had pored over the document for several hours, his
enthusiasm and rigor of argument had proved contagious and convinced me that I was privileged to
witness the discovery of a new document that would change our perception of a seminal point in Greek
history.
Brent Shaw, University of Pennsylvania:
In the years I was at Cambridge, I had occasion to meet him at least once every year that he came
over. I cannot remember who it was who introduced me to him, but it surely must have been Finley—and why on earth he thought that one lonely Canadian graduate student would be worthy of Michael
Jameson’s valuable time, I cannot say. But every year, he would phone, come to pick me up in a car
he had and take me out to some perfectly wonderful pub that he had discovered in the heart of rural
Cambridgeshire and treat me to an equally wonderful lunch over which we would discuss all species
and types of problems in ancient history. “If I could only be like him”, I remember myself
thinking ....
Helene Foley, Barnard College:
On the personal side, Mike and I shared a passion for gardens and plants. He introduced me to
herbs and other plants that he had grown to love in Greece. His own place was full of them. I found
myself envying all those archaeological walking trips he had taken in Greece, meeting those plants
in their original context. Through Mike, the Greece I had encountered through books or trips as a
tourist became a vivid world in which people gathered and farmed and inhabited their houses in
concrete specificity.
Mark Alonge, Stanford University:
Ever since I got to Stanford, I have been a keen admirer of Mike, but over the last year, as I got
to work with him more closely and immerse myself in his work, he became one of my most important
intellectual heroes. I’ve taken his breadth of interest and accomplishment as a model for my own
academic career.
Closing Words by Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann
Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya teaches, “When our learning exceeds our deeds, we are like trees whose
branches are many but whose roots are few: The wind comes and uproots them. But when our deeds exceed
our learning we are like trees whose branches are few but whose roots are many, so that even if all
the winds of the world were to come and blow against them, they would be unable to move them.”
(Pirke Avot 3:22)
Michael Jameson was revered for his learning, but he was beloved for his deeds. Although he was
fascinated by and studied ancient Greek religion for six decades, he did not himself belong to an
established religious tradition. The kind of immortality that he believed in was the type that
occurs when the impact of one’s personality and work continues to be felt for generations to come.
Because of his self-effacing nature, he would not have claimed to have achieved such lasting influence
himself. Had he been able to listen to the many tributes in his honor, he would have been surprised
to be appreciated for the many levels on which he touched the lives of those who knew him, who in
turn influence others.
As we honor Michael Jameson, let us strengthen and expand our awareness of his personal qualities
and achievements, helping us to keep them alive for the near and distant future.
Or as Bachya ibn Pakuda says in felicitous language for a classicist: “Days are scrolls; write on
them what you want to be remembered.” We will remember your days and your scrolls, (your scrawls),
Michael Jameson, and carry them forth into the future, grateful for your wisdom, warmth and
friendship. May the memory of your righteousness be for us a blessing.
To see a page of the printed program, click on the corresponding thumbnail image below:
The program can also be printed on paper.
The Stanford Office of Religious Life has kindly made available a recording of the memorial service on an audio CD. Friends of Mike who
would like to receive a copy of this CD are invited to send their postal address, using the contact information on the page
http://dfki.de/~jameson/
The following tributes could not be read in full during the service, because of the limited time
available.
Jody Maxmin, Stanford University
As the freshmen arrived on campus this morning, prepared to begin their odyssey, “full of
adventure, full of instruction,” I noted a look of anxiety in the faces of some of the parents. We
tend too often to forget how traumatic it can be for parents to leave their children in the care of
colleges and universities. Such places can be uncaring and impersonal, a dramatically different
environment from the families in which students have been raised.
Mike Jameson never forgot and his insistence on treating his students (and the students of others)
as extensions of his own wonderful family is one of his many lasting legacies. In the sorrowful days
that followed the announcement of his death, I spoke with and wrote to friends and colleagues who,
like me, were “adopted” by Mike and regarded themselves as honorary students.
Mike possessed a humanity and a humility combined with a genuine curiosity about what one was doing, academically and
personally. He conveyed a feeling that no matter how humble one’s intellect or research project, there was always something that
Mike could learn from one and there were always ways in which Mike could help. Mike was a model of a true teacher. While being
true to Paul Cartledge’s description of him (“The genius of Mike Jameson was to combine work in three of the major classical
sub-disciplines—ancient history, archaeology and epigraphy—and to be both a foremost international expert and a pioneer in all
three....”) he could step outside of his own eminence and, with the graciousness and generosity that were two of his greatest
virtues, take care to provide that classics and archaeology and epigraphy and history would be guided by great young scholars
coming up in the ranks who were also good, kind people.
He never forgot me or any of the stray dogs and cats he collected during his sabbaticals and his
travels. We exchanged letters about all manner of subjects, from the weird research topics I was
pursuing, to Virginia’s teaching at GFS, to their gardening (supervised by Tim) and his teaching and
research projects. I have kept every air-gram, post card and manually typed letter he sent me in a
huge “Mike J” file. I sometimes suspected that he sent me on little errands around Oxford so that
when I came home for Christmas vacation to see my family in Philadelphia, I would have an excuse for
visiting him and Virginia. One time it was some book he could easily have ordered from Blackwell’s.
Another time it was some hilarious British undergarment that Virginia just HAD to have. I think it
was just a ruse to keep robust what I regarded as one of the most special friendships of my young
adult life.
From the day I began teaching, I regarded his model as sacrosanct. Students are the
children of others: treat them as you would wish your own children to be treated. Nothing less will
do. When Stanford—and the rest of us—operate at the top of our ideals, we are following in the
tradition of Mike.
I will remember him every time I encounter a student, see a look of fear or loneliness in his or
her eye, and know how to respond. Mike taught us all to be sensitive to such students and to react
to that look as any parent would, with generosity and love. Through his teachings, the fields of
Greek history, archaeology, epigraphy, excavation, field survey and philhellenism are in the superb
hands of his students. Through his equally remarkable teaching, the art of teaching itself has been
elevated to levels we will all continue to aspire to, all the while remembering and loving him.
Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
I was Mike’s first doctoral student after he arrived at Stanford in 1976. But in spring 1980 after I received my degree, I went
home for the summer to help on our farm—and ended up staying there. The next year—though it was becoming clear that I would
probably not seek an academic career—Mike, my thesis advisor, called and asked whether he could help publish the thesis. I had
little money for a publication subsidy and no contacts in the publishing world, and of course no future as a classicist. Mike
persisted. And a few weeks later he called back to say he thought a study of agriculture and war could be valuable for the field,
that Emilio Gabba agreed, that he had found a postdoctoral publication grant, and the Warfare and Agriculture would appear as a
monograph in Italy. He did all that himself, and lectured me not to cease reading and staying active in the field. For the next 10
years as I returned to campus life at CSU Fresno, Mike would periodically write or call, send articles that he thought I would not
have access to, and in general inquire about my work, worrying that the teaching load might preclude research. I owe him a great
deal for not giving up on me, although at the time there was little likelihood I would write or be active much in classics.
Usually I would drive up to Palo Alto, take a look at his fruit trees, advise about pruning, and spend the afternoon keeping up
with his updates about European scholarship in classical agrarianism. For years he was my only real conduit to the world of
classical scholarship; I deeply appreciated that then and now, and I will miss him a great deal.
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Cynthia Patterson, Emory University
Mike had an extraordinary gift for language. I remember watching (hearing) him negotiate with the guards at archaeological sites
in Greece and thinking “wow”—especially when we ended up getting just what we wanted. That was the summer of 1973 when I was a
member of the Halieis excavation (and Richard finished his dissertation—in the Porto Cheli coffee house).
The excavation took a midpoint break early in July, and the director offered to drive anyone
interested on a tour of the Peloponnese in the excavation’s old blue VW bus. We signed up for the
trip and it still provides some of my favorite visual memories of Greece and of Mike. In particular,
I remember our arrival in Sparta. It had been a long, hot day—walking through sites, climbing
acropoleis, and bumping along the roads. But in Sparta, our leader said, he knew just the taverna to
revive our spirits and energy. And indeed, he led us to an out of the way establishment with tables
distributed around a small waterfall, where we ate grilled brizoli, choriatike salad, and drank the
local, dark smoky retsina, while our dessert karpouzi cooled in the water at the foot of the falls.
Could this be Sparta? It was a magical evening—I don’t think I could find the spot again or if I
did it probably wouldn’t match the memory, which I am happy to keep just as it is.
Finally, the second to last time I saw Mike was over Labor Day weekend a year ago in Palo Alto. We
took Scotttie for a walk and talked over his new theory about the family of Neaira, based on his
curiosity and a previously unnoticed grave inscription for a woman named Strybele. It was a
spectacularly beautiful California morning—and there was Mike walking the dog over the hills
behind Stanford and doing Greek history.
Helene Foley, Barnard College
I first met Mike Jameson when he joined the faculty at Stanford. What continued to strike me
throughout the time I was still teaching there is Mike’s role as an intellectual catalyst. His mind
was always full of more good questions than he could ever pursue and he was generous in sharing them
with others. I remember reading over and over a number of his papers, including his unpublished
dissertation from University of Chicago, which played an important role in the introduction to my
first book. But he was also brilliant at seeing the critical questions hidden in one’s own work. One
time he asked me to come to his Greek history seminar and do an anthropological critique of a
particular issue relating to Homer and Archaic Greece that the class was studying. I was deeply
intimidated. But of course it turned out after I had done it that it was just what I needed to think
through for my own research and this was his tactful way of telling me so. After I left Stanford, I
found myself saving up questions for him at rare meetings in NY or the APA. If I could convince
Mike, I knew I was onto something, even if less adventurous people might not agree. I will deeply
miss the chance to keep doing so.
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Martin Ostwald, Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania
Michael Jameson was one of my oldest friends in the United States. We met in the graduate reading
room of the Classics Department at the University of Chicago in 1946, where he was working for his
doctorate in Classics, and I was beginning graduate studies in Classics in the Committee on Social
Thought. He had just married Virginia, and I had just begun dating Lore, who was to become my wife
two years later. Common interests, mutual congeniality, and daily contact soon made us and our
families firm friends.
His acceptance of a position at the University of Missouri and my departure to Columbia University
in New York reduced our contacts to correspondence, but a more intimate contact was re-established,
when he moved to the University of Pennsylvania and, partly because of his presence there, made me
accept a teaching position at Swarthmore College in 1958. Throughout the eighteen years that we were
neighbours, personal and professional bonds between us flourished.
The discussion of the Themistocles decree and the problems it aroused world-wide among Classical scholars is still going on. It
may be said to have started at a memorable colloquium held under Mike’s leadership at the Institute of Advanced Study at
Princeton, at which Professors Benjamin Merritt, H. T. Wade-Gery, and Pierre Amandry were among the most lively participants. It
also marked the beginning of Mike’s interest in the exploration of the Argolid, especially of the excavation of Halieis under his
supervision. The outstanding team of students he assembled for the excavations became his devoted friends, and many now occupy
prominent academic positions at universities and museums.
1960 is also memorable for my family and myself in that we spent the first of several summer
vacations with the Jamesons in Maine. Mike had introduced us to a prominent Philadelphian who rented
out converted barns on his estate at a low rate to, as he put it, “academics who deserve a vacation
but cannot afford it.” We were fortunate to be considered such, and spent many a happy summers
there. Shortly before we left, Mike had acquired “Dutchess” from the dog pound. She was a pure
Bassett hound, and when, soon after arrival in Maine, she gave birth to ten beautiful puppies, it
was not difficult to succumb to Mike’s persuasion to take the seventh—appropriately named
“Septimia”—into our house. She remained with us as a beloved companion for many years. Her
paternal parent remained a mystery, as her legs grew longer and her ears did not.
Mike was an activist and had an unusual knack of implementing the ideas that kept springing up in
his restless mind. One of the most seminal institutional contributions to the study of antiquity he
made almost as soon as he was appointed Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the
University of Pennsylvania. Taking advantage of the presence at Penn of an excellent Department of
Oriental Studies (as it was then called) and of the outstanding facilities of the University Museum,
he founded the “Graduate Group in Ancient History” as a new way of fostering through
interdisciplinary studies a more comprehensive view of the ancient past, which culminated in a Ph.D.
which had teeth in it. The faculty was drawn from members of all existing departments concerned with
the study of antiquity, so that no new appointments were required, and the students were assured
instruction by the best expert in each field. To complete the doctorate, a student had to pass
preliminary examinations in the language and literature of any two ancient cultures: Egyptian and
Hittite, Assyrian and Greek, Roman and Hebrew, etc.: any two ancient cultures were acceptable. The
completion and defense of a dissertation, preferably on a subject bridging the two cultures chosen
was the only additional requirement for the Ph.D. This program, in which I was also privileged to
participate. attracted a sizable number of outstanding students, many of whom now occupy chairs at
leading universities. As far as I know, Mike was the first to implement an idea that has by now
spread to many other universities both in this country and abroad and has given rise to a number of
institutes of Mediterranean Studies.
Michael Jameson was a Classicist’s Classicist. There are very few areas of Greek studies that his
fertile inquisitive mind did not try to explore. Since he saw the interconnection between religion
and locality, traditional text and inscription, literature and history, his written contributions to
all of these—and more—cannot be arranged in a chronological pattern. He saw any given problem
three-dimensionally and wrote on whatever aspect of it occupied his mind at any given time. For
example, his interest in Greek religion was concentrated on sacrifice. He first examined the
significance of sacrifice at meals in his dissertation in 1949. At the time of his death, he was
still working on the publication of his great general contribution on Sacrifice and Society in
Ancient Greece (given as the Martin Lectures at Oberlin in 1983). He was also still busy working on
the second Nilsson Lecture to be given at the Swedish Institute in Athens on Greek Religion: The
Public Record. This does not signify a flagging of his interests in religion between these two
dates; it merely indicates his perfectionism: He did not want to commit his thoughts to print, until
and unless he was sure he had substantiated by further study every detail that he had said and
learned. At least 12 articles on religious aspects of heroes. places, and institutions appeared
after his dissertation at various points in his career either as independent pieces or as
contributions to collective works. The best known of these is probably his chapter on Greek
Mythology in S. N. Kramer’s The Mythologies of the Ancient World, published as a Doubleday Anchor
Book in 1961. It is still used as a basic text in many classes on mythology. One of his most
important contributions to scholarship in Greek religion is his Notes on the sacrificial calendar
from Erchia (Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, 1965).
Mike’s earliest published contributions to the reflections of historical events in literature
appeared in articles on Seniority in the Strategia (1955), Politics and the Philoctetes
(1956), and Sophocles and the 400 (1971). His most durable contribution to our knowledge of the
Greek past combines his love of the Greek landscape with a keen eye for hidden archaeological sites,
a superb knowledge of Greek, and a thorough mastery of epigraphy. To this we owe not only the
discovery of the Themistocles Decree from Troezen and the ample exploration of its meaning, but also
his organization of the ecological investigation of the Argolid which retrieved a vast treasure of
new inscriptions, and culminated in the excavation of Halieis. where some work is still going on.
I could go on for quite some time without even beginning to do justice to the ways classical
scholarship has been enriched by Mike’s contributions. They have been recognized internationally by
significant awards and appointments. His work won the support of the Fulbright and Guggenheim
Foundations, he won fellowships from the NEH and the ACLS; he was elected to membership by the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and by the American Philosophical Society, he held visiting
appointments at Darwin and Jesus Colleges in Cambridge, at the Japanese Society for the Promotion of
Science, and at the National Research Council at Odense, Denmark. And this is far from exhausting
the recognitions his excellence as a scholar and teacher received.
But on the human level, all this is matched by the warmth of his friendship, his dedication to his
students, his generous helpfulness to those who needed it and by the affection he radiated.
(Iliad, 22, 389–390).
Other Tributes
- An obituary by Barbara Palmer
appeared in the Stanford Report of 22 September 2004.
- Tributes have been collected by Tom Boyd and by Jim and Christina Dengate on the web site of the Halieis project.
Michael H. Jameson Fellowship Fund and Memorial Tree
For those who would like to make a donation in Michael Jameson’s memory, one possibility is to contribute to the Michael H.
Jameson Fellowship Fund, which is being established by the Arete Foundation of Mike’s former student Edward E. Cohen and his wife
Betsy. This fund will be used to expand the existing Jameson Fellowship program at the American School of Classical Studies in
Athens and possibly to add one in Rome. Donations can be sent to:
Arete Foundation: Michael H. Jameson Fellowship Fund
Attn. Suanne Taylor
10th Floor
1845 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA 19103
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With the help of donations from colleagues and friends, in late 2004 Prof. Irene Polinskaya arranged for a memorial tree to
be planted in Mike’s memory at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. During the Spring of 2005, she is organizing a
tree dedication ceremony, which will be held in conjunction with a colloquium that is being organized by Dr. Angelos
Matthaiou. Both events are tentatively scheduled for Thursday and/or Friday, 16–17 June 2005. Further information can be requested
from Prof. Polinskaya at ipolinsk[at]bowdoin.edu. |
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