Sterling Dow was born 19 November 1903 in Portland, Maine. He attended Harvard College and received a BA in 1925 with honors in philosophy; he won the Fiske Scholarship to study history at Trinity College, Cambridge for one year and then received his MA from Harvard in 1928. In 1931, he married Elizabeth “Libby” Sanderson Flagg and moved to Athens where he was associated with the American School of Classical Studies at Athens from 1931 to 1936. In 1936, he received his PhD from Harvard.
      From 1936 until his retirement in 1970, Dow taught at Harvard College, first as a tutor and instructor (1936-1941), then Associate Professor (1941-1946), then Professor of History and Greek (1946-1948), and, in 1949, he was appointed the John E. Hudson Professor of Archaeology. During World War II, he worked in military intelligence (OSS) in Cairo.