Sather Professorship of Classical Literature

Shortly before her death in 1911, she arranged for the funds to be consolidated; they were now to pay for what would become the Sather Tower and the establishment of two professorships: one in Classics and one in historiography.

[7] In 1919, classicists Ivan Mortimer Linforth and George Calhoun modified the nature of the appointment: henceforth, holders would give a specified number of lectures (initially eight, later six) on a unified topic.

[8] The Sather Professorship has been held by numerous distinguished scholars including Cyril Bailey, E. R. Dodds, Denys Page, Geoffrey Kirk, Ronald Syme, Edward Rand, and Bernard Knox.

[8] Appointments in the 21st century have included Latinists Philip Hardie, Alessandro Barchiesi, and Denis Feeney, Hellenists Helene P. Foley, and Gregory Nagy, and historians Mary Beard and Nicholas Purcell.

[1] Writing for The Times Literary Supplement, poet and author Robert Bringhurst states that the Sather Lectures and its associated publications "include many major works of classical scholarship".

[10] The 1969 Lectures, given by Hellenist Hugh Lloyd-Jones, offered "an important re-examination of the religious beliefs of the Greeks in the pre-classical and classical periods".