Pierre Roussel (ancient historian)

Pierre Roussel (born February 23, 1881 in Nancy , † October 1, 1945 in Paris ) was a French ancient historian and epigraphist .

Pierre Roussel studied first at the University of Nancy with Paul Perdrizet , then from 1901 to 1904 at the École normal supérieure and was then a member of the École française d'Athènes until 1910 . Under the direction of Maurice Holleaux , he worked there from 1906 the inscriptions of Delos , which he published as part of the Inscriptiones Graecae . The work was praised by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , he described Roussel as an excellent editor. However, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff expressed criticism of the independent French edition of the inscriptions outside the Inscriptiones Graecae . In his further career, Roussel dealt with Delos, where he was also involved in the excavations. From 1915 to 1918 he taught at the Lycée Janson de Sailly and received his doctorate in 1917 with two works on Delos. One part was a scientifically significant study on the Egyptian cults on Delos, which he examined for the first time on the basis of the epigraphic finds and presented organization and cult practice. In 1918 he was appointed professor at the University of Bordeaux , where he stayed for only a year before moving to the University of Strasbourg in 1919 . From 1925 to 1935 he was Charles Picard's successor at the École française d'Athènes , and in 1935 he moved to the Sorbonne . In 1937 Roussel became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres .

In addition to researching Delos, Roussel also worked on inscriptions from Delphi , his edition of the Rhodian inscription with the granting of citizenship to Captain Seleukos was the editio princeps of this text. As an ancient historian, he researched the relationships between the Greeks and the Oriental peoples between the Persian Wars and Roman expansion, as well as the history of Sparta , about which he presented an introduction in 1939 directed against Helmut Berves glorification of Sparta. From 1913 to 1936 he was in charge of the Bulletins épigraphiques of the Revue des études grecques .

literature

• Raymond Lantier: Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. Pierre Roussel. In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Volume 93, 1949, pp. 26-38 ( full text ).
• Heinrich Schlange-Schöningen : Roussel, Pierre. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Sp. 1089-1091.