Paul Heinrich Emil Baehrens (24 September 1848, in
Bayenthal
Bayenthal (german: Köln-Bayenthal) is a neighbourhood of Cologne, Germany and part of the district of Rodenkirchen. Bayenthal lies on the left bank of the river Rhine, between the district of Innenstadt to the North and Marienburg neighbourhood ...
– 26 September 1888, in
Groningen
Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
) was a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
classical scholar.
After completing his studies he became ''
Privatdozent
''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualific ...
'' at
Jena
Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...
. In 1877 he was appointed ordinary professor at the
University of Groningen
The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...
. He published editions of many Latin authors, including
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
,
Propertius
Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.
Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of ''Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the poets Gallus a ...
and minor poets.
His son
Wilhelm Baehrens also became a classical scholar.
Life
Baehrens was the son of Paul Baehrens, a businessman, and his wife Maria (née Hagen). After the death of his father (1850), his mother married Dr. G. A. Hesse, who became like a second father to Baehrens. He was originally supposed to become a businessman, but in accordance with his aptitude Baehrens attended the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Cologne. And after his final exam, he began his studies in classical philology at the
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...
. His teachers included
Jacob Bernays
Jacob Bernays (11 September 182426 May 1881) was a German philologist and philosophy, philosophical writer.
Life
Jacob Bernays was born in Hamburg to Jewish parents. His father, Isaac Bernays (1792–1849) was a man of wide culture and the first ...
,
Franz Bücheler
Franz Bücheler (3 June 18373 May 1908) was a German classical scholar, was born in Rheinberg, and educated at Bonn, where he was a student of Friedrich Ritschl (1806–1876).
Biography
In 1856 Bücheler graduated from the University of Bonn wit ...
,
Friedrich Heimsoeth,
Joseph Klein,
August Reifferscheid,
Franz Ritter, and
Anton Springer. Most influential on Baehrens was Lucian Müller, as well as
Otto Jahn
Otto Jahn (; 16 June 1813, in Kiel – 9 September 1869, in Göttingen), was a German archaeologist, philologist, and writer on art and music.
Biography
After the completion of his university studies at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Kiel, t ...
and
Hermann Usener
Hermann Karl Usener (23 October 1834 – 21 October 1905) was a German scholar in the fields of philology and comparative religion.
Life
Hermann Usener was born at Weilburg and educated at its Gymnasium. From 1853 he studied at Heidelberg, ...
, who gave him metrical and paleographical exercises, which brought him in 1868 to the Philological Seminar. In 1870 Baehrens took the "Oberlehrerexamen" and earned his doctorate. From 1871 to 1872 his deepened his studies at the
University of Leipzig
Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...
with the critic
Friedrich Ritschl
Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl (6 April 1806 – 9 November 1876) was a German scholar best known for his studies of Plautus.
Biography
Ritschl was born in Großvargula, in present-day Thuringia. His family, in which culture and poverty were hereditar ...
. Finally, he undertook his first educational trip, where he saw antique manuscripts in Munich, Milan, Bologna, Pisa, Venedig, Florence, Lucca, Siena, Rome, and Naples. In Rome he stayed six months at the Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, where he gained many contacts.
After his return in the autumn of 1873 Baehrens qualified as a professor at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena with the article "De Sulpiciae quae vocatur satira, commentatio philologica." In the following years he took further research trips: from January to April 1874 he visited the libraries of Löwen, Brüssel, and Paris, and from March to August 1875, Paris, London, and Oxford. In the summer semester of 1877 he was given the position of professor, and spent several years as a professor at the
University of Groningen
The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen in ...
In the next eleven years he held many lectures and visited the library in London once again. In Groningen he married the daughter of his colleague
Willem Hecker, a professor of history. On 26 September he succumbed to an abscess of the brain after 26 days. One of his three surviving children,
Wilhelm Baehrens became a classical philologist.
During his research, Emil Baehrens brought forth many important editions of different Latin authors, including
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His s ...
("Catulli Veronensis liber", 1876, with a large commentary published as second volume in 1885), "Panegyrici Latini,"
Gaius Valerius Flaccus
Gaius Valerius Flaccus (; died ) was a 1st-century Roman poet who flourished during the " Silver Age" under the Flavian dynasty, and wrote a Latin ''Argonautica'' that owes a great deal to Apollonius of Rhodes' more famous epic.[Publius Papinius Statius
Publius Papinius Statius (Greek: Πόπλιος Παπίνιος Στάτιος; ; ) was a Greco-Roman poet of the 1st century CE. His surviving Latin poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the ''Thebaid''; a collection of occasional poetry, ...]
("Silvae"),
Tibullus
Albius Tibullus ( BC19 BC) was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins.
Little is known about the life of Tibullus. There are only a fe ...
("Tibullinische Blätter"),
Sextus Propertius
Sextus Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet of the Augustan age. He was born around 50–45 BC in Assisium and died shortly after 15 BC.
Propertius' surviving work comprises four books of ''Elegies'' ('). He was a friend of the poets Gallus a ...
,
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...
("Lectiones Hortianae"),
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
(Dialogus de oratoribus"), and
Minucius Felix
__NOTOC__
Marcus Minucius Felix (died c. 250 AD in Rome) was one of the earliest of the Latin apologists for Christianity.
Nothing is known of his personal history, and even the date at which he wrote can be only approximately ascertained as betwe ...
("Octavius").
His greatest undertaking were the "Poetae latini minores," which from 1879 until 1883 appeared in five volumes from the publisher Teubner-Verlag. They were newly edited by
Friedrich Karl Vollmer from 1910 until 1923. The first edition appeared in 1930 as a new adaptation by
Willy Morel. As a continuation of the collection Baehrens published in 1886 through the Teubner-Berlag the "Fragmenta poetarum Romanorum," which are today separated from the "Fragmenta poetarum Latinorum" by Willy Morel, Karl Büchner, and Jürgen Blänsdorf.
Further reading
* Eulogy, in: ''Jahresbericht über die Fortschritte der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft'', 16th vol. 1891, p. 7
* Nekrolog von J. W. Beck, in: ''Archiv für lateinische Lexikographie und Grammatik'', 5th vol 1888, pp. 606–608
*
D.R. Shackleton Bailey, "Emil Baehrens (1848–1888)", in ''Latin Studies in Groningen, 1877–1977'', ed. Heinz Hofmann (Groningen, 1990), pp. 25–37
External links
* ''Poetae latini minores'', Aemilius Baehrens (ed.), 5 voll., Lipsiae in aedibus B. G. Teubnerii, 1879-83
voll. 1 and 2voll. 3 and 4vol. 5
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baehrens, Emil
1848 births
1888 deaths
German classical scholars
University of Groningen faculty
University of Jena faculty
University of Bonn alumni
Writers from Cologne