biography
| name: |
Mommsen, (Christian Matthias) Theodor
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1817–1903)
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| biography:
| Historian, born in Garding, N Germany. He studied jurisprudence at Kiel, examined Roman inscriptions in France and Italy for the Berlin Academy (1844–7), and held a chair of law at Leipzig (1848–50). In 1852 he became professor of Roman law at Zürich, in 1854 at Wrocław, Poland (formerly Breslau, Prussia), and in 1858 professor of ancient history at Berlin. He edited the monumental Corpus inscriptionum Latinarum, helped to edit the Monumenta Germaniae historica, and from 1873–95 was permanent secretary of the Academy. In 1882 he was tried and acquitted on a charge of slandering Bismarck in an election speech. His greatest works remain his History of Rome (3 vols, 1854–5) and The Roman Provinces (1885) (trans titles). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1902. |
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