Hendrik Wagenvoort


Hendrik Wagenvoort was a Dutch classical scholar. He was professor of Latin at the University of Groningen and Utrecht University and published extensively on subjects relating to the Latin language and Roman religion.

Biography

Wagenvoort was born in Minnertsga on August 23, 1886. He began studying classics at Utrecht University in 1904 and took his doctoral degree in 1911. His dissertation was called De Horatii quae dicuntur Odis Romanis and dealt with Horace's so called Roman Odes. After a year of further studies in Göttingen and Rome he began teaching Latin at gymnasiums, from 1912 to 1919 in Arnhem and from 1919 to 1924 in The Hague. In 1924 he became professor of Latin language and literature at the University of Groningen and during the following years he directed his efforts at examining Religion in the late Roman Republic and the early Imperial Rome. He moved to Utrecht in 1930 to succeed Pieter Helbert Damsté as professor of Latin. His inaugural lecture was called Pax Augusta, in line with his earlier research, but gradually his interest shifted to the religion of the earliest Rome and "primitive survivals" in later Roman religious life. In 1956, at age 70, Wagenvoort officially retired but he continued to work at the University and in other contexts.
Wagenvoort was a deacon in the Reformed Church and a member of the Commission of the Unemployed during the economic crisis of the 1930s. He also served as the president of a number of institutions including the Provincial Society of Utrecht and the Extra-mural University of Utrecht. Additionally, he served as judge of Hoeufftianum, an annual competition in Latin poetry.
In 1942 Wagenvoort became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Works and influence

Wagenvoort was influential both as a writer and as a teacher. He published a great number of articles but also directed 38 doctoral dissertations, an unusually high amount in the field of classical studies.

Publications in English