Ernst von Herzog

Ernst Herzog

Ernst Georg Karl Herzog , von Herzog since 1886 , (born November 23, 1834 in Esslingen am Neckar , † November 16, 1911 in Stuttgart-Degerloch ) was a German classical philologist , ancient historian , epigraphist and Roman provincial archaeologist . He worked as a private lecturer and professor of philology and archeology at the University of Tübingen (1862–1902) and as a member and route commissioner of the Reich Limes Commission (1892–1911).

Life

Youth and Studies

Ernst Herzog attended the pedagogy in Esslingen, where his father Georg Karl taught, and graduated in 1848. He then completed his schooling at the seminary of the Schöntal Monastery , where he took the bankruptcy examination in autumn 1852. In the winter semester of 1852/1853, Herzog began studying philology and theology at the University of Tübingen , where he was particularly influenced by the church historian Ferdinand Christian Baur and the philologists Ernst Christian Walz , Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel and Albert Schwegler . Especially with Schwegler, who published his Roman history at this time (at the same time as Theodor Mommsen , who survived him), Herzog entered into a friendly relationship.

After the First Theological service examination (1856) Duke continued his philological studies and was on 19 February 1857 a thesis on the Roman sacral law doctorate , which Schwegler had suggested. In the summer semester of 1857 he deepened his studies at the universities of Munich and Erlangen .

Private tutor in Paris (1857–1859), stay in Berlin (1859–1860)

In August 1857 he received a position as tutor to the family of the Russian diplomat Nikolai Ivanovich Turgenew (1789–1871) in Paris through the mediation of his Tübingen teacher Baur .

During his two years as private tutor (from October 1857 to October 1859), Herzog learned French fluently, made contact with the academic greats of Paris and was able to visit the British Museum in London while on vacation . His interest in archeology, which was fueled there, led him to study archeology at the University of Berlin after his post in Paris was over . Eduard Gerhard introduced him to the methodology of the subject and August Boeckh to the auxiliary sciences . Herzog also heard lectures from Moriz Haupt and Theodor Mommsen , with whom he was in close contact through their shared interest in Roman epigraphy and legal history until his death.

Stay in Rome (1860–1861)

In June 1860, Herzog traveled via Stuttgart to Rome, where the Archaeological Institute was his first point of contact. In addition to the secretaries Wilhelm Henzen and Heinrich Brunn, he got to know the guests Alexander Conze , Adolf Michaelis , Adolph Kießling , Kurt Wachsmuth , Eugen Petersen , Franz Reber , Tycho Mommsen , Heinrich Degenkolb , Henri Jordan and Karl Friederichs . In Rome, Herzog worked out his plan to collect the Roman inscriptions from southern France. He had already drawn up this plan in Berlin and continued in thought with suggestions from Mommsen and Henzen.

In April 1861, Herzog stayed in Naples and Pompeii and then traveled via Florence to southern France, where he arrived in May. He did not collect all the Roman inscriptions there, but concentrated on those from which the history of the province of Gallia Narbonensis could be inferred. Herzog was able to complete his studies in midsummer and traveled back to his homeland via Paris.

Private lecturer and professor in Tübingen (1862–1902)

In Tübingen, Herzog began his academic career with the fruits of his work and extensive, intensive studies. Due to his extensive knowledge and his teaching success, he gained high recognition within a few years and expanded his lecture topics to various branches of classical studies.

With the research results of his French trip , Herzog completed his habilitation on April 2, 1862 at the University of Tübingen for classical philology - not for archeology or ancient history. In the winter semester of 1862/63, Herzog began teaching with two lectures on Roman administrative history and Roman inscription . In the following semester he gave a lecture on Christian art archeology , the first of its kind in Tübingen. It was not until November 1865, after the appointment of the archaeologist Adolf Michaelis, that Herzog received a teaching assignment for "Roman antiquities" from the university. In the spring of 1867 he was appointed associate professor of classical philology and archeology. He gave his inaugural lecture on a linguistic topic.

On March 1, 1868, he married Fanny Knapp (1843–1922), the daughter of the Württemberg finance minister Christian von Knapp (1800–1861). The couple had a daughter and three sons, including the later classical philologist Rudolf Herzog (1871–1953).

In the summer semester of 1869, Herzog was involved in the exercises of the philological seminar alongside the directors Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel and Karl Hirzel . He supervised the students' academic papers.

In the summer of 1872, the Senate of the University of Tübingen applied for the establishment of a third professorship for Classical Philology, which was created by decree of February 4, 1874 and assigned to Ernst Herzog. At the same time, Herzog was appointed third seminar director and took over the style exercises and interpretive exercises of the seminar in the summer semester of 1875. After the death of the ancient historian Alfred von Gutschmid in 1887 and the rededication of his chair for medieval history, Herzog also gave lectures on Greek and Roman history and historical methodology from 1890 to 1902. In the academic year 1889/90 he was rector of the University of Tübingen. In 1886 he received the Knight of Honor Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown , which was associated with the Württemberg staff nobility ( ennoblement ).

In August 1900, Herzog suffered a stroke that made it difficult for him to speak. Herzog took a year off from his lectures and stayed in the sanatorium in Baden-Baden, where he met the philosophy historian Eduard Zeller . In the winter semester of 1901/02, Herzog resumed his lectures, but submitted his resignation to the Rectorate and Ministry of Education on May 20, 1902, which was granted on May 30. After 80 semesters, Herzog ended his teaching activity in Tübingen. Professor Georg Wissowa from Halle was initially appointed as his successor ; after he had refused the offer, Professor Gotthold Gundermann from Giessen succeeded him.

Retirement and continuation of scientific work

Ernst Herzog remained active as a researcher until his death despite his health restrictions. His work had long been internationally recognized: he had been a member of the Greek Philological Society of Constantinople since 1885 and a full member of the Archaeological Institute since 1894. He devoted his last years to the Reich Limes Commission , to which he had belonged since 1892 and of which he was a member of the board for a long time. From 1903 to 1910 he was Württemberg's representative in the Roman-Germanic Commission in Frankfurt am Main. In 1911 he moved from Tübingen to Stuttgart-Degerloch, where he died on November 16, shortly before the age of 77.

Services

Ernst Herzog has made great contributions as a researcher and as an academic teacher. In his lectures he dealt with almost all of ancient studies, the broad understanding of which stemmed from his contact with Boeckh and Mommsen.

Herzog's greatest achievements are in the field of Roman epigraphy. Among his early publications, his work on the history of the province of Gallia Narbonensis stands out ( Galliae Narbonensis provinciae Romanae historia descriptio institutorum expositio , Leipzig 1864), which was based on a study by Mommsen on Roman Switzerland. The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in Paris, which presented the work to Herzog in 1865, awarded her first prize.

Herzog's main work is his two-volume treatise History and System of the Roman State Constitution (Leipzig 1884–1887). He is based on Niebuhr's views on the constitution of the Roman Republic, which are now considered obsolete. He discusses the Roman history of his teachers Schwegler and Mommsen, which were published at the same time, in detail, but rejects Mommsen's view that the Roman state constitution from the early republic to the late imperial era resulted in a systematic whole. Because of these systematic deficiencies, this work by Herzog fell into oblivion soon after its publication; However, it remains valuable because of the comprehensive presentation of the state of research and the unique collection of ancient sources.

In addition to his work on epigraphy and constitutional law, Herzog wrote works on Roman linguistics and its application in school lessons. More important, however, was his commitment to the establishment of the Imperial Limes Commission in Württemberg, which King Charles I approved on August 22, 1877. After the first inspections of the Limes route, Herzog published detailed reports on the preliminary results in 1879 and 1880. In 1883 and 1884 he carried out excavations in Rottenburg am Neckar , where he suspected a Roman fort. However, his assumptions were not confirmed. In August and September 1892 he carried out excavations at the western fort in Öhringen , and in 1893 in Mainhardt and Jagsthausen. From 1894 onwards, Herzog saw the final publication of the Limes Commission: The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes of the Roman Empire .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Court and State Manual of the Kingdom of Württemberg 1907, p. 35.

literature

• Peter Goessler : Ernst Herzog . In: Württemberg quarterly for regional history . 41, 1935, pp. 128-171 (with picture).