Hartmut Erbse (23 November 1915 – 7 July 2004) was a German classical philologist.

Life

The son of a dentist from Thüringen, Erbse studied

classical philology Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek and Roman literature and their original languages, ...

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, where he was well known for his lively hat-wear and received his doctorate in 1940. In 1948 he completed his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

with a study of Attic lexica; in the same year he received his first lectureship, in Hamburg. In 1954 he was appointed to a special professorship there, and six years later he was appointed a full professor. In 1965 he accepted an invitation to take the chair of Greek philology at

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

, and in 1968 a further invitation to the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

. He researched and taught there until just before his death. Erbse died, at age 89, on 7 July 2004.Ruprecht, p. i. His research was devoted to textual criticism and editions of Greek fragments and

scholia Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient a ...

, and to interpretation of

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

, and

Thucydides Thucydides ( ; ; BC) was an Classical Athens, Athenian historian and general. His ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' recounts Peloponnesian War, the fifth-century BC war between Sparta and Athens until the year 411 BC. Thucydides has been d ...

. Erbse acted as co-editor of the well-known journals ''Glotta'' and ''Hermes'', and in 1965 was one of the editors of the ''Lexikon der Alten Welt'' (LAW), alongside Carl Andresen, Olof Gigon, Karl Schefold, Karl Friedrich Stroheker, and Ernst Zinn. With Kurt Latte he published the ''Lexica Graeca minora'', but he remains best known for his masterpiece, a huge seven-volumes critical edition of ''Iliads ''Scholia vetera''. Hartmut Erbse was a Corresponding Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

and the Academy of Sciences at Göttingen.

Selected works

* (1950) ''Untersuchungen zu den attizistischen Lexika'', Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. * (1960) ''Beiträge zur Überlieferung der Iliasscholien'', München: Beck. * (1965) ''Lexica Graeca minora'', Hildesheim: Olms. * (1969–1983) ''Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem'', Berlin: de Gruyter. * (1972) ''Beiträge zum Verständnis der Odyssee'', Berlin: de Gruyter. * (1979) ''Ausgewählte Schriften zur klassischen Philologie'', Berlin-New York: de Gruyter. * (1980) ''Festschrift für Hartmut Erbse zum 65. Geburtstag'', ed. Joachim Latacz, Würzburg: Schöningh. * (1984) ''Studien zum Prolog der euripideischen Tragödie'', Berlin: de Gruyter. * (1986) ''Untersuchungen zur Funktion der Götter im homerischen Epos'', Berlin: de Gruyter. * (1989) ''Thukydides-Interpretationen'', Berlin: de Gruyter. * (1991) ''Fiktion und Wahrheit im Werke Herodots'', Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. * (1992) ''Studien zum Verständnis Herodots'', Berlin: de Gruyter. * (1995) ''Theosophorum Graecorum Fragmenta'', Stuttgart: Teubner. * (2003) ''Studien zur griechischen Dichtung'', Wiesbaden: Steiner.

References

* Köhnken, Adolf, "Hartmut Erbse", in ''

Gnomon A gnomon (; ) is the part of a sundial that casts a shadow. The term is used for a variety of purposes in mathematics and other fields, typically to measure directions, position, or time. History A painted stick dating from 2300 BC that was ...

'', Vol. 77, No. 4, S. 380–383, 2005. . *Ruprecht, Dietrich, "Hartmut Erbse", in ''Glotta'', Vol. 78, No. 1./4., pp. I–V, 2002. . {{DEFAULTSORT:Erbse, Hartmut German classical scholars People from Rudolstadt 1915 births 2004 deaths Academic staff of the University of Bonn Corresponding fellows of the British Academy