Roy C. (Roy Caston) Flickinger

Born in Seneca, Illinois, on December 17, 1876, he studied at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Berlin before going on to a long academic career in classical languages. He is best known for The Greek Theater and Its Drama, a major study first published in 1918 that helped introduce generations of readers to the history and practice of Greek drama.

He taught at Northwestern University and later joined the State University of Iowa in 1925, where he served as head of the Department of Classical Languages until his death on July 6, 1942. Alongside his teaching and research, he also played an important role in the profession through The Classical Journal, serving as business manager and then editor-in-chief in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Colleagues remembered him as an internationally respected classicist who wrote dozens of articles and reviews in addition to his books. His work connected literary criticism, theater history, and classical scholarship in a way that still makes his writing useful to readers interested in how Greek drama was staged and understood.