Johann Georg Baiter (31 May 1801 – 10 October 1877) was a

Swiss Swiss most commonly refers to: * the adjectival form of Switzerland * Swiss people Swiss may also refer to: Places * Swiss, Missouri * Swiss, North Carolina * Swiss, West Virginia * Swiss, Wisconsin Other uses * Swiss Café, an old café located ...

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

and textual critic.

Life

He was born at

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, where he received his early education. He went on in 1818 to the

University of Tübingen The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (; ), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven German Excellenc ...

, but could not afford to stay there, and had to return to Zürich, where for several years he was a private tutor. From 1824 to 1829 he studied at

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

under

Friedrich Thiersch Friedrich Wilhelm Thiersch (17 June 178425 February 1860), was a German classical scholar and educator. Biography He was born at Kirchscheidungen (now a part of Laucha an der Unstrut, Saxony-Anhalt). In 1809 he became professor at the gymna ...

; at

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, under Georg Ludolf Dissen; at

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

, under

Christian Lobeck Christian August Lobeck (; 5 June 1781 – 25 August 1860) was a German classical scholar. Lobeck was born at Naumburg, in the Electorate of Saxony. After studying at the universities of Jena and Leipzig, he became ''Privatdozent'' at the Uni ...

. From 1833 to 1876 he was ''Oberlehrer'' at the gymnasium in Zürich, where he died.

Work

Baiter's strong point was

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...

, applied chiefly to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

and the Attic orators; he was very successful in finding the best manuscript authorities, and his collations were made with the greatest accuracy. Most of his works were produced in collaboration with other scholars, such as

Johann Caspar von Orelli Johann Caspar von Orelli (Latin ''Iohannes Caspar Orellius''; 13 February 1787 – 6 January 1849), was a Swiss classical scholar. Life He was born at Zürich of a distinguished Italian-speaking family from Locarno which had taken refuge in ...

, who regarded him as his right-hand man. He edited

Isocrates Isocrates (; ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education through his teaching and writte ...

, Panegyricus (1831); with

Hermann Sauppe Hermann Sauppe (9 December 1809 – 15 September 1893) was a German classical philologist and epigraphist born in Weesenstein, near Dresden. In 1832 he earned his doctorate from the University of Leipzig, where he was a student of Gottfried ...

Lycurgus Lycurgus (; ) was the legendary lawgiver of Sparta, credited with the formation of its (), involving political, economic, and social reforms to produce a military-oriented Spartan society in accordance with the Delphic oracle. The Spartans i ...

' ''Leocracea'' (1834) and ''Oratores Atticae'' (1838–1850); with Orelli and Winckelmann, a critical edition of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

(1839–1842), which marked a distinct advance in the text, two new manuscripts being laid under contribution; with Orelli, ''Babrius, Fabellae Iambicae nuper repertae'' (1845); ''Isocrates'', in the Didot collection of classics (1846).

Collaborators

He had been associated with Orelli in his great work on Cicero, and assisted in ''Ciceronis Scholiastae'' (1833) and ''Onomasticon Tullianum'' (1836–1838). The ''Fasti Consulares'' and ''Triumphales'' were all his own work. With Orelli and (after his death)

Karl Felix Halm Karl Felix Halm (also ''Carl''; ''Karl Felix Ritter von Halm'' after 1872; 5 April 1809 – 5 October 1882), was a German classical scholar and critic. Life He was born at Munich. In 1849, having held appointments at Speyer and Hadamar, he ...

, he assisted in the second edition of the Cicero, and, with Carl Ludwig Kayser, edited the same author for the

Tauchnitz Tauchnitz was the name of a family of German printers and publishers. They published English language literature for distribution on the European continent outside Great Britain, including initial serial publications of novels by Charles Dickens. ...

series (1860–1869). New editions of Orelli's

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. Tacitus’ two major historical works, ''Annals'' ( ...

and

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

were also due to him. With Sauppe, he translated

William Martin Leake William Martin Leake FRS (14 January 17776 January 1860) was an English soldier, spy, topographer, diplomat, antiquarian, writer, and Fellow of the Royal Society. He served in the British Army, spending much of his career in the Mediterrane ...

's ''Topography of Athens''.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baiter, Johann Georg 1801 births 1877 deaths Writers from Zurich Swiss philologists Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni University of Göttingen alumni University of Königsberg alumni Swiss classical scholars