Ernst Riess (philologist)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernst Riess (born November 19, 1865 in Hamburg , † June 12, 1947 in Scarsdale , New York ) was a German-American classical philologist .

Life

Ernst Riess came from a Jewish family. His parents, the businessman Bernhard Riess and Pauline geb. Mack, gave him an excellent education. Ernst Riess initially received private lessons and from 1874 attended the Talmud School in Hamburg. From autumn 1876 to 1880 he attended high school in Göttingen , then the learned school of the Johanneum in Hamburg under the direction of Richard Hoche .

After graduation (Easter 1885) Riess studied classical philology and archeology at the universities of Heidelberg (1885–1887) and Bonn (1887–1890), where he took the teaching examination in the winter of 1889/1890 and on June 25, 1890 with Hermann Usener to the Dr. phil. received his doctorate . In his doctoral thesis he collected the fragments of the Egyptian astronomers Nechepsus and Petosiris. His fellow students Wilhelm Becker, Paul Ruben and Max L. Strack were opponents in the defense of the doctoral thesis .

Riess emigrated to the USA in 1895 at the latest . From 1897 to 1924 he taught Latin at various schools and colleges in New York , from 1924 to his retirement in 1936 he was professor and director of the classical philological department at Hunter College in New York.

Scientifically, since his dissertation, he has primarily dealt with magic and superstition in antiquity, he also wrote textbooks for Latin in America and edited the texts of Latin classics. From 1895 he was a life member of the American Philological Association .

Fonts (selection)

  • Nechepsonis et Petosiridis fragmenta magica . Bonn 1890 (dissertation). Revised version: Philologus . Supplement volume 6.1 (1892), pp. 328-394
  • Cicero's Letters. Selected and edited by Ernst Riess . New York 1910
  • with Arthur Lee Janes: Caesar's Gallic War. Books I & II . New York 1914

literature

  • Dr. Ernst Riess Dies at Eighty-One . In: Scarsdale Inquirer . Volume 29, Number 25, June 20, 1947
  • Eckart Mensching : Nugae on the history of philology VI . Berlin 1993, p. 108f.

Web links

Wikisource: Ernst Riess  - Sources and full texts
personal data
SURNAME Riess, Ernst
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American classical philologist
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1865
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1947
Place of death Scarsdale , New York