The Institute is saddened to hear of the death of one of our very first Fellows, Professor Christopher J. Rowe OBE. A renowned classicist and translator, Prof. Rowe died on 24 July 2025.
He came to IASH in autumn 1972 as a Visiting Research Fellow, when the Institute was based at 12 Buccleuch Place. At the time, he was at the beginning of his career as Lecturer in Classics at the University of Bristol, having completed his PhD in 1969. His research while in Edinburgh explored the structure and thought of Aristotle's politics, seeking to "provide some firm evidence about the general nature of the Aristotelian treatises, about Aristotle's working methods, and about his intellectual development." Alongside research on Plato, Rowe's study of Aristotle would last the rest of his life, culminating in the publication of his monumental Aristotelis: Ethica Eudemia with Oxford University Press in 2023.
He moved to Durham University in 1996, and retired in 2009, the same year he was awarded an OBE for services to scholarship. According to his Durham colleague Phillip Horky, "His ashes are to be conveyed to Stagira, birthplace of his beloved Aristotle."