Sterling Dow at right, with Eugene Vanderpool in 1963–64
One of celebrated classical scholar Sterling Dow’s many specialties was the Athenian lawcourts and particularly the marble allotment machines or kleroteria, on which he was one of the world’s experts. Some fragments of these had been excavated by the French on Delos and Dow was eager to examine them. One of my most pleasant duties as Secretary of the School in the early 1960s was to assist a visitor like Dow in his research in any way I could. I was delighted when he asked me to accompany him to Delos to study these fragments.
We went, of course, by boat and in those days there was a Xenia tourist pavillion on the island where you could spend the night. As we embarked from Mykonos in the varka to cross over to Delos, the skies darkened and Dow asked ominously, “Isn’t there something awful in one of the lyric poets about ‘when clouds gather over Tenos’?” After a very rough crossing we spent the day with the kleroteria in the museum. The Xenia also served meals and the owners kept turkeys, virtually the only living things on the island. Consequently every meal consisted of some variation on turkey: roast, pilaf, pasta with turkey, turkey stew, etc.
After a filling turkey dinner washed down with excruciating island retsina, we retired to our very simple double room. There was no electricity for bedtime reading and we were both tired. After quickly falling asleep, however, I awoke suddenly to a deafening roar that actually sent vibrations through my simple metal cot. Delos is very quiet and still at night and I had no idea of the origin of this roar except that it died down a bit and then built up into a huge crescendo. I looked over at the other cot in our room and Dow was on his back, emitting this thundering snoring. What to do? There was no way I was going to be able to sleep through it and no indication that Dow was going to stop snoring or turn over etc. Here we were: the distinguished Hudson Professor from Harvard and a fledging graduate student from Berkeley. What would be the consequences if I woke him up? But perhaps if he woke up on his own, maybe as a result of a loud neutral noise? Dow always used a wooden clipboard and there were no rugs on the hard stone floor. When dropped flat on the floor from a height of more than five feet this clipboard almost sounded like a gunshot. It took four or five of these sharp reports before the great man finally turned over, stopped snoring, and we both slept soundly for the rest of the night.
— Contributed by Ronald S. Stroud, 1959–1963, 1964–1965, 1969–1970, 1973–1974
