Carl Roberts

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the Marburg legal scholar, see Carl Wilhelm Robert .

Undated photograph by Carl Robert

Bust of Carl Robert

Robert (back right) with his fellow students (Bonn, summer semester 1869)

Carl Georg Ludwig Theodor Herwig Joseph Robert , also Karl Robert (* March 8, 1850 in Marburg ; † January 17, 1922 in Halle an der Saale ) was a German classical philologist and archaeologist who was a professor in Berlin (1877–1890) and Halle (1890–1922) worked.

Life

Robert was a son of the doctor and surgeon Ferdinand Robert (1814-1878). After school, which he spent from 1863 to 1868 at the Wiesbaden grammar school, he began studying classical philology and archeology at the University of Bonn in 1868 (together with his older school friend Hermann Diels ). His studies were interrupted when he was deployed in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. After the war he continued his studies at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin and received his doctorate in 1873 with his dissertation De Apollodori bibliotheca . He then stayed until 1875 with a travel grant from the German Archaeological Institute for study purposes in Greece and Italy.

He achieved his habilitation in 1876 with the writing Eratosthenis catasterismorum reliquiae in Berlin, where he was appointed private lecturer, 1877 extraordinary professor and 1880 personal professor. In 1890 he accepted a call to the University of Halle , where he held the Chair of Classical Philology and Archeology until his retirement in 1920. In the academic year 1906/1907 he was rector of the university. Since they were both students in Bonn, he was close friends with Hermann Diels and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff , who were almost the same age .

Robert was married to Clara Neumeister, who died in 1899. The couple had three children: the son Wolfgang (* 1881) became a judge, the elder daughter Helene (* 1879) married the lawyer Moritz Liepmann , the younger, Anna (* 1882), the Marburg archaeologist Walter Altmann (1873–1910).

Services

Robert understood classical philology and archeology in Heyne's sense as a disciplinary unit. His writings are characterized by this interdisciplinary approach. He dealt with the connections between archeology and literary tradition and with mythology. He participated in the corpus of Roman sarcophagus reliefs , continued the Halle "Winckelmann Program" begun by his predecessor Heinrich Heydemann , and expanded the Archaeological Museum in Halle with new acquisitions. From 1882 to 1921 he was editor of the Hermes magazine , initially together with Georg Kaibel , after his death in 1901 with Friedrich Leo (until 1913), after his death with Georg Wissowa .

His name is best known for the revision of Greek mythology , which Ludwig Preller first published in two volumes in 1854. The strong expansion is due less to the text, which Robert left largely unchanged, although the theoretical foundations were already outdated, than to the rich annotations, which often assume the size of small treatises. The part about the gods appeared in deliveries as early as 1884 to 1894, he only edited the heroic sagas later, so that the last section could only be published posthumously by Otto Kern (1920 to 1926). The Preller-Robert work has only been overtaken by the mighty Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (1981-1999).

honors

Even during his lifetime, Robert received great recognition for his academic achievements. He was a member of the German Archaeological Institute (since 1874; many years in the central management), the Regia Lynceorum Academia in Rome (1890), the Austrian Archaeological Institute (1906), the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (1915), the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala (1915), the Society of Sciences in Göttingen (1918) and the Academy of Non-Profit Sciences in Erfurt (1920). He was a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences (since 1907) and of the Institut de France since 1913. The University of Athens awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1912. The Greek Philological Society in Constantinople and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in London made him an honorary member in 1885 and 1904 respectively. After his death, the University's Archaeological Museum was also given the honorary name "Robertinum".

Robert was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Swedish Order of the North Star, the Order of the Red Eagle , third class (1914) and the Order of the Crown , second class (1917).

Chronological overview

• April 21, 1874: corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute; April 21, 1879 Ordinary Member; Member of Central Management 1907–1909, 1914–1921
• October 30, 1885: Member of the Greek Philological Society in Constantinople
• March 31, 1890: regular member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome
• 1901: Corresponding member of the Göttingen Society of Sciences, March 9, 1918 external member
• January 4, 1904: Honorary Member of the Society for the promotion of Hellenic studies
• July 2, 1906: real member abroad of the Austrian Archaeological Institute
• May 2, 1907: Corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin
• April 3, 1912: Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens
• December 19, 1913: Corresponding member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris
• July 14, 1915: Corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich
• November 5, 1915: full member of the Royal Society of Sciences at Uppsala
• March 8, 1920: Corresponding member of the Academy of Non-Profit Sciences in Erfurt

writings

• Carl Robert: image and song. Archaeological contributions to the history of Greek heroic legends. Weidmann, Berlin 1881 ( digital copy and full text in the German Text Archive ).

literature

• Otto Kern : Carl Robert. In: Historical Commission for the Province of Saxony and for Anhalt (ed.): Central German life pictures. Volume 2: Images of life in the 19th century. Self-publishing of the Historical Commission for the Province of Saxony and for Anhalt, Magdeburg 1927, pp. 438-451.
• Otto Kern: Hermann Diels and Carl Robert. A biographical attempt (= annual report on the progress of classical archeology. Supplement volume 215, ZDB -ID 3921-4 ). Reisland, Leipzig 1927.
• Manfred Oppermann :  Robert, Carl. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 21, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-428-11202-4 , p. 678 f. ( digital copy ).
• Manfred Oppermann: Robert, Carl. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (ed.): History of Classical Studies. Biographical Encyclopedia (= The New Pauly . Supplemente. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart/Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , columns 1066-1068.

web links

Commons : Carl Robert  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Carl Robert  - sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Carl Robert in the German National Library catalogue
• Entry on Carl Robert in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis

Remarks

1. ↑ See the photo of the three friends together with other fellow students, printed by Otto Kern, Taf. I after p. 24. The "biographical attempt" deals with two of them in close association.