A search for Elaine Fantham's name in l'Année philologique online yields 81 results: these start with a set of articles on Roman comedy in the early 70s. Yet Cicero appears already in 1973, and "Virgil's Dido and Seneca's tragic heroines" in 1975. The first book, Comparative Studies in Republic Latin Imagery, appears in 1972. In the late 70s, Cicero and rhetoric predominate for a while, but Horace, Ovid, Statius, and Seneca are all jostling for attention, and in 1982 the edition of Seneca's Troades comes out. All these interests continue, and Lucan and women in antiquity join them. Lucan II in the green-and-yellow in 1992 and Ovid, Fasti IV in 1998, Roman Literary Culture in 1996, The Roman World of Cicero's De oratore and Ovid's Metamorphoses in 2004, and Julia Augusti in 2006. This range of scholarship is obviously closely connected to teaching. The commentaries and introductory works are meant to help real students and readers, and through her books and articles we can often hear the echo of the living seminar. Her former students, from Indiana, Toronto, and Princeton, revere her. She is unfailingly helpful to colleagues throughout the world, but nobody could doubt the clear and sharp judgment that accompanies her amiability. It is this combination of wide learning, awareness of audiences, clarity, and wit that has made her so successful on NPR.
With all this, the catalogue of Elaine Fantham's services to the APA is exhausting even to read. It begins in 1976, when she served on a special committee on Basic Research Tools. This committee's work led to a number of very useful initiatives, including two of the APA's most important projects of the last few decades: the Barrington Atlas of the Ancient World and the Database of Classical Bibliography. Prof. Fantham served on the Placement Committee from 1980-83, was a director from 1987-90, was on the program committee from 1988-91, was VP for Research from 1992-96, and was President in 2004. Those are only the highlights. She has done more than any one person could be expected to do, and done it all well, with both wisdom and good humor. Even now she is a member of the Advisory Board for l'Année philologique and a very hard-working member of the Capital Campaign Committee. For thirty years of such dedication, our gratitude can hardly be an adequate response, but it could not be more heartfelt.