Christian Habicht (historian)

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Christian Habicht (born February 23, 1926 in Dortmund ; † August 6, 2018 in Princeton (New Jersey) ) was a German ancient historian and epigraphist who did a great job of researching Hellenism and ancient Greek inscriptions .

Life and awards

Christian Habicht came from a family of craftsmen and was the son of Hermann Habicht, CEO of Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG in Hamburg, and his wife Emmi, née Diefenbach. He grew up in Hamburg and attended the Matthias-Claudius-Gymnasium there until his military service, which he did from 1943 to 1945. After the end of the Second World War , he made up his Abitur at the Johanneum and began studying ancient history, classical philology and classical archeology at the University of Hamburg in the winter semester of 1946/1947 . He spent individual semesters at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg and the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen . On July 16, 1952, he was in Hamburg with a thesis on Greek religious history doctorate . For 1952 he received a scholarship to promote the next generation of university teachers; for 1954/1955 he was awarded the travel grant of the German Archaeological Institute , which among other things enabled him to conduct intensive epigraphic studies in Greece. From this material grew his habilitation thesis, which he submitted to the University of Hamburg in 1957 and in which he edited and commented on 65 popular resolutions from the island of Samos . From 1956 to 1959 he worked as a research assistant in Hamburg, in 1959 he was appointed private lecturer . In 1960/1961 he worked as a consultant for ancient history at the Athens branch of the German Archaeological Institute .

In 1961 Habicht was appointed full professor of ancient history at the Philipps University of Marburg and in 1965 moved to the University of Heidelberg. He turned down an offer at the University of Basel in 1970, as he did in 1964 at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn . In the winter semester 1966/1967 and in the summer semester 1967 Habicht was dean of the Heidelberg Philosophical Faculty. In 1973 he went to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton as a professor , of which he had been a member since the previous year . In Heidelberg he remained an honorary professor . Until 1983 he also taught as a visiting professor at Princeton University , and in the 1995 summer semester as a visiting professor at the University of Hamburg. In 1998 he retired . His most famous student is Alexander Demandt .

In 1982 Christian Habicht was Sather Professor in Classics at the University of California, Berkeley . In 1991 he received the Reuchlin Prize of the City of Pforzheim, in 1996 the Moe Prize of the American Philosophical Society and in 1998 the Criticos Prize of the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies in London. He was a member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences (since 1970), the German Archaeological Institute (since 1977) and the Austrian Archaeological Institute , the American Philosophical Society (since 1983), the British Academy (since 1996) and the Academy of Athens (since 1999). Habicht was also co-editor of the series Hypomnemata (1962 to 1996) and Jewish writings from the Hellenistic Roman period (1973 to 1998) as well as the American Journal of Ancient History (1976 to 2000).

Researches

Habicht mainly dealt with the Greek epigraphy and prosopography as well as the history of the Hellenistic epoch. Especially on the development and society of Athens under Hellenism, he has published important articles, which are mainly in the volumes “Studies on the political history of Athens in the 3rd century BC. BC ”,“ Studies on the History of Athens in the Hellenistic Period ”,“ Athens in the Hellenistic Period. Collected Essays ”and“ Athens. The history of the city in Hellenistic times ”were published. He has also written studies on the ancient travel writer Pausanias and the political activities of Marcus Tullius Cicero . His epigraphic work resulted in the publication of numerous previously unpublished inscriptions from Athens, but also from Pergamon , Demetrias , Samos , Thessaly and Kos .

Fonts (selection)

A complete list of publications up to 2002 can be found in Volume 32 (2002) of the magazine Chiron, dedicated to Habicht, on pp. 2-14.

  • God-humanity and Greek cities . CH Beck, Munich 1956; 2nd edition 1970.
    • Revised English translation: Divine Honors for Mortal Men in Greek Cities: The Early Cases. Michigan Classical Press, Ann Arbor (Michigan) 2017, ISBN 978-0-9799713-9-6 .
  • Antiquities of Pergamon Volume 8, 3. The inscriptions of the Asklepieion . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1969.
  • 2. Book of Maccabees (= Jewish writings from Hellenistic Roman times. Volume 1: Historical and legendary stories. Part 2). Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh 1976, ISBN 3-579-03912-1 ; 2nd edition 1979.
  • Investigations into the political history of Athens in the 3rd century BC Chr. CH Beck, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-406-04800-5 .
  • Studies on the history of Athens in the Hellenistic period . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1982, ISBN 3-525-25171-8 .
  • Pausanias and his "Description of Greece" . CH Beck, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-406-30829-5 .
  • Cicero the politician . CH Beck, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-406-34355-4 (also published in English and Japanese translation).
  • Athens in Hellenistic times. Collected essays . Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-38164-2 .
  • Athens. The history of the city in Hellenistic times . Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-39758-1 (also in English, French, Greek and Russian translations).
  • The Hellenistic Monarchies: Selected Papers . University of Michigan Press 2006, ISBN 0-472-11109-4 .

literature

  • Christian Habicht: Inaugural address. In: Yearbook of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. Born 1974, pp. 29–33.
  • Hans-Joachim Gehrke : Obituary for Christian Habicht. In: Yearbook of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences for 2018. Heidelberg 2019, pp. 193–198 ( online ).
  • Athanasios A. Themos, Nikolaos Papazarkadas (ed.): Αττικά Επιγραφικά. Μελέτες πρὸς τιμὴν τοῦ Christian Habicht. Typographeio Keimena, Athens 2009, ISBN 978-960-86121-9-8 (Festschrift for his 80th birthday with several articles on Habicht's scientific work).
  • Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1933–1986. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-88834-5 , p. 240 f.
  • Kürschner's German Scholars Calendar 2007. Saur, Munich 2007, Volume 1, p. 1192.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary for Christian Habicht on the website of the Department of Ancient History and Epigraphy at Heidelberg University , accessed on August 7, 2018; Obituary for Christian Habicht on the IaS Princeton website , accessed August 7, 2018.
  2. ↑ Christian Habicht: Inaugural Address. In: Yearbook of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. Born 1974, p. 29–33, here p. 29 f.
  3. ↑ Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1933–1986. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-88834-5 , p. 240.
  4. ↑ On the life path up to the doctorate see Christian Habicht: Inaugural speech. In: Yearbook of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. Born 1974, p. 29–33, here p. 30 f.
  5. ^ Christian Habicht: How I came to Greek Epigraphy. In: Athanasios A. Themos, Nikolaos Papazarkadas (ed.): Αττικα Επιγραφικα. Μελέτες πρὸς τιμὴν τοῦ Christian Habicht. Typographeio Keimena, Athens 2009, ISBN 978-960-86121-9-8 , pp. 41-45, especially pp. 41 f.
  6. ↑ Christian Habicht: Sami plebiscite of the Hellenistic period. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Athenian Department . Volume 72, 1957, pp. 153-274.
  7. ↑ Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1933–1986. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-88834-5 , p. 241.
  8. ↑ For the professional stations since the habilitation see Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1933–1986. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-88834-5 , p. 241.
  9. ^ Obituary by the Institute for Advanced Study on Christian Habicht , accessed on August 8, 2018.
  10. ↑ Dagmar Drüll: Heidelberger Gelehrtenlexikon 1933–1986. Springer-Verlag, Berlin / Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-540-88834-5 , p. 241; List of members of the Austrian Archaeological Institute , accessed on August 8, 2018.
  11. ↑ Ronald S. Stroud: Christian Habicht and the Study of Attic Inscriptions. In: Athanasios A. Themos, Nikolaos Papazarkadas (ed.): Αττικα Επιγραφικα. Μελέτες πρὸς τιμὴν τοῦ Christian Habicht. Typographeio Keimena, Athens 2009, ISBN 978-960-86121-9-8 , pp. 15-21, especially p. 16 (with further references to Habicht's writings).
personal data
SURNAME Habicht, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ancient historian
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Dortmund
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 2018
Place of death Princeton, New Jersey