Klaus Rosen

Klaus Rosen 2019

Klaus Rosen (born May 31, 1937 in Mannheim ) is a German ancient historian with a focus on late antiquity . He held chairs for ancient history at the University of Eichstätt (1978–1982) and at the University of Bonn (1982–2002).

Live and act

Klaus Rosen entered the humanistic Karl-Friedrich-Gymnasium in Mannheim in 1947 and graduated from high school in 1956. He studied classical philology, history and philosophy at the universities in Heidelberg , Bonn , Freiburg and Munich . Rosen initially focused his studies on modern history, but then decided on ancient history because of his inclination towards ancient languages. The plane crash of 1961, in which Hans Schaefer , Jacques Moreau and numerous young scientists were killed near Ankara, led Rosen into historical science. At the request of the academic councilor Ursula Weidemann , he entered the orphaned Heidelberg institute. Rosen received his doctorate in 1966 with a thesis on the art of representation and historicity supervised by Viktor Pöschl with Ammianus Marcellinus in Heidelberg. Next to Pöschl, Fritz Gschnitzer was his most important academic teacher. After completing his doctorate, Rosen spent three years as a senior lecturer at the University of South Africa in Pretoria , where he received his doctorate again in 1970 on a subject related to constitutional law on Hellenistic history . This was followed by activities as an assistant (1970–1971) and academic advisor (1971–1977) at the Department of Ancient History at the University of Freiburg. In the meantime, Rosen was visiting professor at the State University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1974 . In 1974 he qualified as a professor for Ancient History at the University of Freiburg with the thesis King and People in Hellenistic Macedonia . Hermann Strassburger and Walter Schmitthenner had the greatest influence on him at the University of Freiburg . After his habilitation, he first taught as a private lecturer and then as a professor at the Universities of Freiburg (1974–1978) and Eichstätt (1978–1982). From 1982 until his retirement in 2002 he was the successor of Johannes Straub Professor of Ancient History at the University of Bonn. There he was Vice Dean of the Philosophical Faculty from 1992 to 1996. Since 1997 he has also been a full member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts . There he is chairman of the commission for the edition of the documents of Ludwig the Pious .

Klaus Rosen 2001

Rosen is primarily concerned with late antiquity as well as the Christian and pagan religious history in the Roman Empire . The focus is on Christianity and the Roman state. To this end, he published numerous individual studies. Rosen has been researching Ammianus Marcellinus in detail since his 1968 Heidelberg dissertation. In 1982 he published a manual on Ammianus Marcellinus that is still relevant today. In 1994, von Rosen published the anthology Power and Culture in Imperial Rome . The volume contains ten contributions that go back to a symposium held in Bonn in 1989. Thematically, the articles deal with the cult of rulers and the symbolism of rulership, the relationship between the educated and rulers or ideas of world domination and Augustus . The specialist spectrum ranges from Hellenism to late antiquity and also covers the 16th and 17th. Century. In 1997, Rosen presented his long-term research on Marcus Aurelius in a paperback for a wider audience. In 2002 Rosen published a brief introduction to the migration of peoples . In 2006, von Rosen published a comprehensive German-language biography of the Roman Emperor Julian . Contrary to the usual doctrine, Rosen does not suspect a secret conversion to the pagan cults as early as around 351. Rather, Rosen advocates the thesis that it was only the death of Constantius that triggered Julian's turning away from Christianity. This thesis, which Rosen already represented in 1997, is controversial in the professional world. In 2013 he published a biography about Constantine the Great . In his final chapter he judged the justification of the epithet about the emperor: “Constantine the Great? The great one! ”Rosen's biography of Constantine was received positively in the professional world. Given the large number of biographies on Constantine, Rosen's work takes a moderate position in the assessment of the emperor. In 2015, von Rosen published a biography of Augustine , and in 2016 a depiction of Attila, the king of the Huns .

Fonts (selection)

• Ammianus Marcellinus (= income from research. Volume 183). Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1982, ISBN 3-534-06373-2 .
• as editor: Power and Culture in Rome during the Imperial Era (= Studium universale. Volume 16). Bouvier, Bonn 1994, ISBN 3-416-02330-7 .
• Marc Aurel. 3. Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3-499-50539-8 .
• Greek story told. From the beginning to 338 BC Chr. Primus, Darmstadt 2000, ISBN 3-89678-168-5 .
• The Great Migration. 3. Edition. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-47980-4 .
• Julian. Emperor, God and haters of Christians. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-608-94296-3 .
• Constantine the Great. Emperor between power politics and religion. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-608-94050-3 ( review by H-Soz-u-Kult).
• Augustine. Genius and saint. Zabern, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-8053-4860-7 .
• Attila. The horror of the world. Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69030-3 .

literature

• Patrick Bahners : imperial artist. For the ancient historian Klaus Rosen on his eightieth. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 31, 2017, No. 125, p. 11.
• Wolfgang Dieter Lebek : Laudation for Prof. Dr. Dr. Klaus Rosen. In: 1997 yearbook of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences. 1998, pp. 86-88.

Web links

Commons : Klaus Rosen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Klaus Rosen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Short biography and reviews of works by Klaus Rosen at perlentaucher.de
• Page from Klaus Rosen at the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts
• Prof. Dr. Dr. Klaus Rosen. Professor of Ancient History at the KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt from 1978 to 1982

Remarks

1. ↑ Glen Warren Bowersock: Julian the Apostate. London 1978, p. 29. Hans-Ulrich Wiemer : Julian. In: Manfred Clauss (Ed.): The Roman Emperors, 55 portraits from Caesar to Justinian. Munich 1997, pp. 334–341, here: p. 335. Klaus Bringmann : Kaiser Julian. Darmstadt 2004, p. 36.
2. ↑ Klaus Rosen: Julian. Emperor, God and haters of Christians. Stuttgart 2006, p. 226ff.
3. ↑ Klaus Rosen: Emperor Julian on the way from Christianity to paganism. In: Jahrbuch für Antike und Christianentum 40 (1997), pp. 126–146.
4. ↑ See the reviews of Hartmut Leppin in: Historische Zeitschrift 283 (2006), pp. 724f .; Klaus Bringmann in: Klio 91 (2009), pp. 237-239; Henning Börm in: H-Soz-Kult , August 21, 2006 ( online ).
5. ↑ See the review by Raphael Brendel in: Das Historisch-Politische Buch 64 (2016), pp. 142–143; Werner Dahlheim in: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft 62 (2014), pp. 754–756; Oliver Schipp in: Historische Zeitschrift 300 (2015), pp. 349–354; Kay Ehling in: Gymnasium 122 (2015), p. 95f .; Valeria Selke in: Yearbook for Numismatics and Monetary History 64 (2014), pp. 349–354; Helmut Halfmann in: Sehepunkte 14 (2014), No. 9 [15. September 2014] ( online ); Johannes Wienand : in: H-Soz-Kult , April 27, 2015 ( online )
6. ↑ See review by Oliver Schipp in: Historische Zeitschrift 300 (2015), pp. 761–763.
7. ↑ See the reviews of Eva Baumkamp in: Klio 100 (2018), pp. 372–375; Hans Otto Seitschek in: Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte 35 (2016), pp. 304–306 ( online )