I only knew Bernard Knox through his infamous statement about my beloved Dura Europos (which I discovered via that same department at Yale) but I wish his memory well…

Bernard Knox (1914–2010) | The New York Review of Books: “There was not much regard for literature in that department, which made its name under Michael Rostovtzeff by excavating the ancient Hellenistic and Roman site of Dura Europos—in today’s Syria—from the 1920s on. Though that dig turned up fascinating Christian and Jewish art and artifacts, the grubbing in the 1950s was down to the counting of endless little drab oil lanterns. When Brad Welles, the head of the department in the 1950s, boasted of his latest publication, Knox, by that time a Yale professor, angered him by saying, ‘The lamps of Dura Europos are going out one by one.’”

Fascinating life story that we should all wish for.