Jesse Benedict Carter

{{Infobox person

| name = Jesse Benedict Carter

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date |1872|06|16}}

| birth_place = New York City US

| death_date = {{Death date and age |1917|7|20|1872|06|16}}

| death_place = Cervignano del Friuli, Italy

| other_names =

| occupation = Classical scholar

| years_active =

| spouse = Kate Freeman Carter

| children = }}

Jesse Benedict Carter (born June 16, 1872, in New York, New York; died July 20, 1917, in Cervignano del Friuli) was a prominent American classicist of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Carter's life and career were cut short when he died of heatstroke while on an Italian aid mission during World War I."In Memoriam." Classical Philology 13.1 (Jan., 1918), pp. 91-92.New York Times 6 August 1917 p. 9

Carter was the son of Peter and Marie Louise Carter. He was educated at New York University (1889-1890), at Princeton University (A.B. 1893), and at Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (Ph.D. 1898).{{cite book|author=Ward W. Briggs|title=Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k8-uLxAnngUC&pg=PA89|date=1 January 1994|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-24560-2|pages=89–}} At Halle he studied with Georg Wissowa and Carl Robert. He was Professor of Latin at Princeton from 1902. In 1904 he moved to Rome to join the faculty of the American School of Classical Studies, becoming director in 1907. When the American School of Classical Studies merged with the American Academy in Rome in 1911, Carter continued on as a faculty member and became the AAR director in 1912, following the death of Francis Davis Millet aboard the Titanic.

Carter's scholarship focused on Roman religion and topography. He collaborated with Christian Hülsen on topographical studies of the Forum Romanum{{cite book|author=Christian Hülsen|title=The Roman Forvm: Its History and Its Monuments|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EEssAAAAYAAJ|year=1909|publisher=Loescher & Company (Bretschneider and Regenberg)}} and produced his own work on the scholarship of Roman religion.{{cite book|author=Jesse Benedict Carter|title=The religious life of ancient Rome: a study in the development of religious consciousness, from the foundation of the city until the death of Gregory the Great|url=https://archive.org/details/religiouslifean02cartgoog|year=1911|publisher=Houghton Mifflin}}{{cite book|author=Jesse Benedict Carter|title=The Religion of Numa: And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome|url=https://archive.org/details/religionofnumaot00cartuoft|year=1906|publisher=Macmillan and Company, limited|pages=[https://archive.org/details/religionofnumaot00cartuoft/page/3 3]–}}

Carter was married to Kate Freeman Carter (March 5, 1870, in Peekskill, New York, - September 8, 1948, at Clinique Val-Mont, Glion, Montreux, Switzerland) who was the daughter of the Reverend John and Mary Freeman.

Carter was awarded the Order of the Crown of Italy by King Victor Emmanuel III. He is buried in the Protestant Cemetery of Rome, Italy.