Classics professor, ancient social structure analyst dies at 62

RACHEL

Diane Cline, an associate professor emerita of history and classical and ancient near Eastern studies, died last month after battling cancer for more than a year. She was 62.

Cline taught at GW for more than 14 years after beginning at the University as a visiting associate professor in 2001 in the Classical & Ancient Near Eastern Studies department, which studies classical and ancient civilizations in the Mesopotamian region. Her students remember her as a professor whose energetic and passionate teaching inspired them to study classics, and her colleagues and friends remember her as a warm presence and impressive academic who they will greatly miss.

Cline won the Columbian Prize for Teaching and Mentoring Advanced Undergraduate Students in 2017 and the Morton A. Bender Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2018. Cline was also twice named a Fulbright Scholar, a prestigious title given to academics seeking out international or cross-cultural research.

In her last autobio- graphical lecture in April, “A Life in Classics,” Cline said she first became interested in classics when she visited the Parthenon in Greece as a teenager. Cline received her bachelor’s degree in classics from Stanford University and her masters and doctorate degrees from Princeton University.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, Cline said in her lecture she wanted to do something “for today” to help her country and left GW to join the National Security Agency, where she did intelligence work for four years. She returned to GW in 2006, where she was known by many students as “Lady Cline.”

Eric Cline, Cline’s husband and a professor of classical and ancient near Eastern history and anthropology at GW, said he first met his wife while they were both studying at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. He said Diane Cline was usually the smartest person in the room but “never showed it.”

Cline said one of his fondest memories of his wife was the summer they spent together in Crete while she was teaching Greek at the University of Crete with her second Fulbright degree. He said they would try different restaurants while they were traveling in Crete and make jokes about one particular restaurant that the other archaeologist did not like.

“Every time we would go to the restaurant and we’d have a great meal. And then while walking home, one of us would say, ‘But you know, it’s not like it was 10 years ago.’ So that became kind of our catchphrase,” Cline said.

Eric Cline added that their former students told him that he introduced them to archaeology but Diane Cline “brought it to life” by teaching the culture of ancient civilizations and taking students to Greece during spring break to supplement the learning they did in the classroom. He said he fondly recalls the look on students’ faces when he took over one of Diane Cline’s Greek history classes last year and students realized she would not be teaching the course. “I walked in the first day and everybody’s faces dropped. And I’m like, ‘I know, I know. I’m the wrong Cline. You wanted Lady Cline, I’m afraid you got me,’” Cline said. “That was one of my favorite moments, just watching their faces drop when I walked in.”