author
Robinson Ellis
1834–1913
A brilliant Victorian Latinist, he spent much of his career at Oxford and became especially admired for his work on Catullus and other Roman poets. His scholarship was exacting, energetic, and influential enough that contemporaries remembered him as one of England’s great Latin scholars.
1 Audiobook
Catulli Carmina
by Gaius Valerius Catullus, Robinson Ellis
About the author
Born near Maidstone in 1834, Robinson Ellis was educated at Elizabeth College, Guernsey, Rugby School, and Balliol College, Oxford. He became a fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, later taught as professor of Latin at University College London, and then returned to Oxford, where he served as reader in Latin before becoming Corpus Professor of Latin in 1893.
Ellis is best known as a classical scholar and textual critic, especially for his editions and studies of Catullus. He also worked on authors such as Avianus and Aetna, and his reputation rested on a close, learned engagement with difficult Latin texts. Contemporary notices described him as an outstanding Latin scholar, reflecting the high regard he earned in British academic life.
He died in Oxford in 1913. For readers coming to him through older classics writing, Ellis stands out as one of those scholars whose patient work helped shape how Roman poetry was read and edited for generations.