Samson Eitrem

Samson Eitrem, ca.1935

Samson Eitrem (born December 28, 1872 in Kragerø , † July 8, 1966 in Oslo ) was a Norwegian classical philologist , papyrologist and religious scholar .

Life

Samson Eitrem came from an old western Norwegian farming family and was born in the small town of Kragerø. He initially received private lessons, including in the ancient languages , and from 1888 attended the cathedral school in Bergen .

After graduation, he moved to Christiania University (later Oslo) in 1890 and studied Classical Philology, French and English. In 1896 he passed the school examination. In the same year he wrote an award book on Ovid's mythology in relation to its Greek sources, which in 1898 earned him a travel grant. In October of the same year he matriculated at the Berlin University to deepen his studies. The philological seminar, led by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , attracted students from all over the world at that time. Eitrem attended courses with Wilamowitz, Hermann Diels and Johannes Vahlen and in autumn 1899 switched to the University of Göttingen for a semester , where his teachers were the Latinist Friedrich Leo , the Graecist Georg Kaibel and the archaeologist Karl Dilthey . From the summer semester of 1900 to the end of 1901, Eitrem studied in Halle an der Saale with the archaeologist Carl Robert , the historian Eduard Meyer and the philologist Friedrich Blass .

During his studies in Berlin and Halle, Eitrem found his most important research areas. In Berlin, Hermann Diels encouraged him to deal with the ancient history of religion, in Halle Carl Robert to study mythology. In his doctoral thesis, Eitrem dealt with twin pairs in Greek mythology and also used epigraphic and archaeological material. In December 1903 he was on the Oslo University with a thesis on the divine twins among the Greeks doctorate .

Eitrem's studies were followed by a stay of several months in Greece. He was a guest at the German Archaeological Institute , dealt with art archaeological and epigraphic studies and traveled to various landscapes in Greece. With the director of the DAI Wilhelm Dörpfeld he went on excursions to the Peloponnese and the Aegean islands .

In 1912 Eitrem was employed as a lecturer at the University of Oslo and in 1914 appointed full professor. His long-term colleague was Gunnar Rudberg , who held the second chair for classical philology from 1919 to 1933. Eitrem wrote his most important writings during his years as a professor in Oslo. He also founded the Oslo Papyrus Collection ( Papyri Osloenses ), the holdings of which he bought in Egypt in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1945 Eitrem retired. He continued his research until the end of his life and gave lectures at the university when he was 80 years old. a. about Roman religion and papyrology.

Eitrem participated with commitment in international research projects. He was the representative of the Norwegian Academy of Sciences at the Union Académique Internationale . For his services, he was elected a corresponding member of numerous foreign academies and received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Athens and Thessaloniki .

Services

Eitrem was one of the most important papyrologists and religious scholars of his time. He published his writings in both German and Norwegian. His main work on the history of religion was the monograph Sacrifice Rite and Pre-Sacrifice of the Greeks and Romans (1915), which he supplemented with the series Contributions to Greek Religious History (1917-1919). For the realcyclopedia of classical antiquity , which Wilhelm Kroll published in Germany, Eitrem wrote many extensive articles in the fields of mythology and the history of religion.

In papyrology, Eitrem emerged not only through the establishment, administration and processing of the Papyri Osloenses , but also through contributions to the development and interpretation of the papyrus finds. He examined both magical papyri and literary ones. He also supported Karl Preisendanz with his collection of Papyri Graecae magicae (1928–1931).

As in the 50 years of Dyskolos of Menander was discovered Eitrem suggested several improvements and text published in 1962 a metric translation of the piece.

Works

• Sacrifice rite and pre-sacrifice of the Greeks and Romans. AW Broggers Boktrykkeri, Kristiana, on commission from Jacob Dybwad 1915 [1]

literature

• Leiv Amundsen: Sam. Pus †. In: Gnomon . Vol. 39, No. 4, 1967, pp. 429-432, JSTOR 27684221 .
• Knut Kleve: Samson Eitrem (1872–1966). In: Mario Capasso (Ed.): Hermae. Scholars and Scholarship in Papyrology (= Biblioteca degli studi di egittologia e di papirologia. 4). Giardini, Pisa 2007, ISBN 978-88-427-1442-2 , pp. 187-191, (with picture).

Web links

Commons : Samson Eitrem  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Samson Eitrem in the catalog of the German National Library
• Papyri Osloenses