[2][3] For over twenty years he was a professor at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

During and after World War II, he served in the Swiss Army, eventually being promoted to lieutenant.

He came to the U.S. for graduate studies, at Harvard University, where he earned a master's degree in classics in 1951.

He became a full professor at the University of Bonn, and then moved to Johns Hopkins in 1970, where he remained for the rest of his career.

[2] For twelve years, he was the editor in chief of the American Journal of Philology.