Barthold Georg Niebuhr

Background

Barthold was born in Copenhagen on August 26, 1776. Barthold Georg Niebuhr son of Karsten Niebuhr, an explorer and Danish government official.

Education

Barthold studied at the University of Kiel (1794 - 1796), where he became acquainted with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Niebuhr studied agriculture and physical science in London and Edinburgh (1798 - 1799).

Career

At the University of Kiel Niebuhr accepted a position as private secretary to the Danish minister of finance in Copenhagen. Later on his return from London and Edinburgh to Copenhagen he entered the Danish state service, developed great expertise in financial matters, and was appointed director of the Danish National Bank in 1804. In 1806 Baron Stein offered Niebuhr an appointment in the Prussian state service.

Arriving in Berlin on the eve of the Battle of Jena, which led to the collapse of the Prussian state, he joined the Prussian government in its flight to Königsberg and Riga. In 1810, after Stein's dismissal, Niebuhr resigned because he could not work with Stein's successor. Niebuhr remained in Berlin, and started his famous lectures on Roman history. Out of these lectures emerged the first two volumes of his Roman History (1811 - 1812). He rejoined the Prussian government service in financial affairs (1813 - 1816), publishing the semiofficial Preussischen Korrespondenten and writing extensively in support of Prussian annexation of Saxony. Disappointed by the narrowness of the Restoration climate after 1815, Niebuhr accepted an appointment as Prussian ambassador in Rome, where he served until 1823. During this time he continued his studies in Roman history. In the Cathedral library of Verona he discovered the long-lost Institutes of Gaius (later edited by Karl von Savigny), which had served as a basis for the "Institutes" of Emperor Justinian's great codification of Roman Law.

Niebuhr also discovered and published fragments of Cicero and Livy and participated in the edition of Cicero's De republica (1820). In 1823 Niebuhr became a professor at the University of Bonn. He rewrote and republished Roman History (1827 - 1828) and completed the third volume (published 1832), bringing the story to the end of the First Punic War.

Achievements

• Barthold is best known for his original, trailblazing work and lectures in Roman history. He initiated a new method of critical historical scholarship. He pioneered the introduction of philological methodology and introduced social history as a new discipline.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Art. Iv. - A Dissertation On The Geography Of Herodotus, With A Map. Researches Into The History Of The Scythians, Getae And Sarmatians.
  • The History of Rome from the First Punic War to the Death of Constantine... Volume 1
  • Ioannis Malalae Chronographia - Primary Source Edition

Membership

He became a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• His impact on his contemporaries is best exemplified by J. W. von Goethe: "It was really Niebuhr and not Roman history which intrigued me. His penetrating mind and his diligent ways were what really edified us. All those agrarian laws did not really interest me; but the manner in which he explained them, the way in which he clarified complicated relations, was of benefit to me, and laid upon me the obligation to proceed in like manner in the performance of my own tasks."

Connections

In 1800 Barthold married Amalie Behrens (1773-1815) and settled at Copenhagen. After the death of his first wife, Niebuhr married (1816) Margarete Henslen (1787-1831), with whom he had one son, Marcus, and three daughters, Amalie, Lucia and Cornelia.

Father:

Carsten Niebuhr

a prominent German geographer

Spouse:

Margarete Henslen

Spouse:

Amalie Behrens

Daughter:

Cornelia

Daughter:

Lucia

Daughter:

Amalie

Son:

Marcus