Colin MacLeod

 In ‘Elucidations’ (23 August 2021) I wrote:

‘During my first year at Oxford I attended Colin MacLeod’s seminar on Plotinus at Christ Church College. Colin realised what a great advantage I had with my understanding Greek directly in Greek. He asked me to translate a passage my way. I read each sentence of the passage aloud in Greek, then gave its meaning in English. But we soon stopped it, for it was clear that hearing the Ancient Greek didn’t help; it disturbed the others, or they simply switched off.’

But Colin didn’t give up. At the end of Trinity Term 1981 he told me that he was going to Australia for his sabbatical. After his return he wanted the two of us to jointly open a seminar on Plotinus. I was elated. I knew that Oxford dons involved in the Prague adventure would do everything they could to prevent it, but I could not imagine that anybody or anything could prevent him from doing so. I was obviously wrong. On Thursday December 17, after Colin’s return to Oxford, we were to have a meeting of the Plotinus seminar. I just wanted to call Colin, ask him if everything was fine, and discuss with him a controversial point on Plato’s Phaedrus. But before I reached the phone, it rang. A Campion Hall member of the seminar phoned me: ‘The seminar will not take place. Colin took his own life. He jumped to death from a train.’

When I was standing in front of Balliol College with a little poster ‘Let us discuss PLATO’ in front of my breast, hanging from around my neck, Colin’s widow came to tell me in what esteem I was held by Colin.

A short Wikipedia entry says:

Colin William MacLeod (born 26 June 1943 in Edinburgh; died 17 December 1981) was a Scottish classical scholar, educator and author.^[1] MacLeod is known for his work on Gregory of Nyssa and mysticism in Plato, Plotinus and the Church Fathers as well as studies of Horace, Aischylos, Euripides and Homer.

MacLeod was married to Barbara Montagna