Oswald A. W. Dilke

British classical philologist (1915–1993)

Oswald Ashton Wentworth Dilke (26 April 1915 – 10 July 1993) was an English classicist and philologist who was Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Leeds.

Dilke was born at Hove, Sussex, the son of Clement Wentworth Dilke, younger brother of Sir Fisher Wentworth Dilke, 4th Baronet. He studied Classics at Stowe School and King's College, Cambridge from which he held an MA.

Dilke was appointed a Lecturer at University College, Hull (which later became the University of Hull) in 1946. From 1950 to 1967 he was a Lecturer (from 1963 Senior Lecturer) at the University of Glasgow. During the years 1961 2, Dilke held the Chair of Classics at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. In 1967 he became Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the University of Leeds, a post he held until he retired with the title Emeritus Professor in 1980. Dilke helped establish the Varronian Institute in Rieti. He is known for his scholarship of Latin language and text, studies of Greek theatres, and, in particular, his work on ancient cartography and land surveying. Among his best known books are The Roman land surveyors (1971) and Greek and Roman maps (1985).

1948. "The Greek Theatre Cavea." The Annual of the British School at Athens 43:125 192. 1967. "Illustrations from Roman surveyors’ manuals." Imago Mundi 21.1:9 30. 1974. "Archaeological and epigraphic evidence of Roman land surveys," in H. Temporini (ed.) Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt (2 Principat 1): 564 592. Berlin & New York: W. de Gruyter. 1992. "Insights in the Corpus Agrimensorum into surveying methods and mapping," in O. Behrends & L. Capogrossi Colognesi (ed.) Die römische Feldmeßkunst. Interdisciplinäre Beiträge zu ihrer Bedeutung für die Zivilisationsgeschichte Roms (Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philologisch historische Klasse 3,193): 337 347. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.