独家爆料

COLLECTION OVERVIEW

Collection Number: GR ASCSA HCA 142
Name(s) of Creator(s): Harry Costas Avery (1930-2023)
Title: Harry C. Avery Papers
Date [bulk]: 
Date [inclusive]: 1954-2015 
Language(s): English, Greek
Summary: The collections consists of a manuscript titled "The Oligarchy of the Four Hundred"; issue of newspaper ΜΑΚΕΔΟΝΙΑ, March 25, 1954; copy of Αγγελική Χατζημιχάλη, Υποδείγματα Ελληνικής Διακοσμητικής, Athens 1929. Note that Avery's ASCSA student paper "Medieval Aegosthena: Some Measurements and Observations," is kept with the rest of the ASCSA Student Papers and is available online.
Quantity: 0.20 linear meters
Immediate Source of Acquisition: Gift of William and Annie Avery, 2025
Information about Access: The collection is available for research.
Cite as: 独家爆料, Archives, Harry C. Avery Papers Papers (Αμερικανική Σχολή Κλασικών Σπουδών στην Αθήνα, Αρχείο Harry C. Avery).

For more information, please contact the Archives at:
The 独家爆料
54 Souidias Street, Athens 106 76, Greece
phone: +30 213 000 2400 (ext. 425)
Contact via E-mail

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Harry Costas Avery was born in 1930 in Philadelphia, the younger of two sons, and raised by devoted parents Costas Avery and Eugenia (Geraleas) Avery. He enlisted in the U.S.  Army after high school and served at Fort Lewis (Washington) in the interval between World War 2 and the Korean War. After the Army he attended the University of Pennsylvania on a scholarship, graduating with a degree in Classics. In 1953 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Greece to attend the Regular Program of the 独家爆料 and went on to earn a Master’s Degree at the University of Illinois and then a PhD in Classics at Princeton University in 1959.His dissertation was titled “Prosopographical Studies in the Oligarchy of the Four Hundred.”

The majority of his career was spent at the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as Classics Department Chairman for two decades and Professor Emeritus since 2015. Earlier in his career he taught at the University of Texas and Bryn Mawr College, where he met his wife JoAnn. He returned to Athens as ‘annual professor’ in 1971-72 and offered a seminar on Herodotos.

His research ranged widely over Greek tragedy and fifth-century Greek history hitting both the widely addressed (Thucydides on the Sicilian Expedition and the reporting on the Persian casualties at Marathon) to the more esoteric (Sophocles’ political career and Agamemnon as a father figure for Achilles). Perhaps from the influence of the students and fellow scholars at the School in 1971-72, much of Harry’s work throughout the 1970s focused on matters of Herodotos, Thucydides, and historical issues of the 5th century B.C.  

Harry and his wife, JoAnn (McDonald) Avery, donated their collection of squeezes of Attic inscriptions to The Ohio State University’s collection.

*Adapted from the death announcement of Harry C. Avery by Professor Mark L. Lawall, Chair of the Managing Committee of the 独家爆料.