Jacob Achilles Mähly

Arnold Böcklin: Portrait of Jakob Mähly as a student, 1848 (Kunstmuseum Basel)

Group picture (photograph around 1889), teacher at the Upper High School in Basel, from left to right, top: Achilles Burckhardt, Fritz Tschopp, Albert Burckhardt , Rudolf Stähelin, Rudolf Kögel, Theophil Burckhardt-Biedermann , Emanuel Probst, Hans Theodor Plüss ; below: Johann Jakob Oeri, Carl Grob, Jacob Achilles Mähly, Rector Fritz Burckhardt, Gustav Soldan, Felix Bertholet, Albert Riggenbach

Jacob Achilles Mähly (born December 24, 1828 in Basel ; † June 18, 1902 there ) was a Swiss classical philologist .

Life

Mähly grew up as the son of a master cooper in Basel , he attended the humanistic high school , in 1845 he founded the Paedagogia Basiliensis , the oldest secondary school in Switzerland. He completed his studies in Classical Philology in Basel, Göttingen and Berlin with a doctorate in 1850, after which he taught at various secondary schools. From 1853 Mähly was a private lecturer and from 1864 an associate professor at the University of Basel , where he lectured alongside Friedrich Nietzsche . In 1875 he was appointed professor of Latin philology at the University of Basel. As a scientist and lecturer, he was considered unsystematic and superficial, "because of the sheer spirit, solidity was neglected". A larynx disease, which prevented him from speaking more and more, forced him to give up professorship and teaching in 1890. In the following years he still tried to supplement his meager retirement salary through an excessive journalistic activity.

Mähly was brilliant and versatile, he read and spoke Latin and Greek fluently and was a popular speaker and company. He wrote poetry in the High German language and dialect and has written a lot on historical and literary subjects. While most of his works are of a rather popular nature and he lacked self-criticism of his own poetry, he "distinguished himself from the literature of his age through acumen, vision and judgment."

Meyer's classic editions published the "History of Ancient Literature" he wrote. On the literature of antiquity, the works he wrote were published: "Antology of Greek and Roman Poets" and "Euripides - Selected Dramas".

literature

• F. Bauer: Jakob Mähly . In: Biographisches Jahrbuch für Altertumskunde , Volume 27 (1903), pp. 86–89.
• Hans Trog : Mähly, Jakob Achilles . In: Anton Bettelheim (Hrsg.): Biographisches Jahrbuch and German Nekrolog . Vol. 7. Georg Reimer, Berlin 1905, pp. 69-71.

Web links

Wikisource: Jacob Achilles Mähly  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Jacob Achilles Mähly in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Trog: Mähly, Jakob Achilles . In: Anton Bettelheim (Hrsg.): Biographisches Jahrbuch and German Nekrolog . Vol. 7. Georg Reimer, Berlin 1905, p. 70.
2. ↑ Ernst Jenny: Basel Poetry and Basel Art in the 19th Century . In: 105. Neujahrsblatt , Basel 1927, pp. 32–35.
3. ↑ Ernst Jenny: Basel Poetry and Basel Art in the 19th Century . In: 105th Neujahrsblatt , Basel 1927, p. 35.