Michael Ivanovich Rostovtzeff (1870-1952), Russian-born American historian and the foremost classical scholar of his day, specialized in the social and economic movements of Greece and Rome.

Michael Rostovtzeff was born on Nov. 10, 1870, in Kiev, where he went through the university, earning master and doctorate degrees in classical philology. From 1895 to 1898 he traveled throughout the classical lands. He then became professor of Latin at the University of St. Petersburg, a post he occupied until 1918.

Rostovtzeff and his wife left their country in 1918 because of the Russian Revolution and went to England. His Proletarian Culture (1919), published under the auspices of the Russian Liberation Committee, showed his revulsion against the principles of the Russian Revolution. In 1920 he became professor of ancient history at the University of Wisconsin, a position he held until 1925, when he went to Yale as Sterling professor of ancient history and archeology. In 1928 he directed Yale's archeological expedition...