Oskar Leuze

Oskar Leuze (born May 30, 1874 in Beimbach , Württemberg ; † April 19, 1934 in Bad Elster ) was a German ancient historian .

life and work

Oskar Leuze studied at the Evangelical Monastery in Tübingen and then worked at various schools in Württemberg. After receiving his doctorate in 1898, he worked from 1899 to 1901 as a private tutor with Christian von Tattenbach , who was then the German ambassador in Lisbon. During this time Leuze deepened his studies in the libraries of Portugal and Spain and collected material for chronological and numismatic studies, the results of which he evaluated and published in the following years. From 1901 to 1908 he worked as a tutor at the Evangelical Monastery in Tübingen, then as a high school teacher there.

In 1909, Leuze's first monograph, The Roman Year Count , was published, which experts recognized as a fundamental work on Roman chronology. This success encouraged Leuze to embark on an academic career. In 1911 he went to the University of Halle as an assistant , where he completed his habilitation in 1912 and was appointed private lecturer. In his inaugural lecture he dealt with the relations of the Roman Republic to North Africa.

On October 1, 1914, Leuze was offered an extraordinary professorship at the University of Chernivtsi , which he was unable to accept after the outbreak of the First World War . He took part in the World War as a war volunteer from 1914 to 1918, most recently as captain and battalion commander in Alsace. After the end of the war he returned to Halle and led the volunteers there from 1919 to 1920 . In 1921 he followed a call to the University of Königsberg , where he took over the chair for ancient history. During his time in Königsberg, he continued his research work and was involved in university self-administration. In the last few years he suffered from a serious illness that prevented him from teaching from October 1932.

Leuze's research was devoted to ancient chronology, numismatics and metrology . Contrary to many contemporaries who demanded a chronology based on archaeological data, Leuze worked with philological methods and gave the source criticism a new impetus.

Fonts (selection)

• The Agricola manuscript in Toledo . In: Philologus . Supplement Volume 8 (1901), pp. 515-556
• The Roman census. An attempt to determine their historical development . Tubingen 1909
• On the history of Roman censorship . Halle 1912 (habilitation thesis)
• Education to become a citizen . Leipzig 1912
• The campaigns of Antiochus the Great . In: Hermes . Volume 58 (1923), pp. 187-229 and 241-287
• The satrap division in Syria and in Mesopotamia from 520-320 . Hall 1935

literature

• Willy Theiler : Oscar Leuze † . In: Gnomon . Volume 10 (1934), pp. 510-512 (with list of publications)

Web links

Wikisource: Oskar Leuze  - sources and full texts

• Literature by Oskar Leuze in the catalog of the German National Library
• Entry on Oskar Leuze in the Catalogus Professorum Halensis