Francois-Jean-Gabriel de La Porte du Theil (16 July 1742 in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

– 28 May 1815) was a French historian. He played a role in the early attempts to decipher the

Rosetta Stone The Rosetta Stone is a stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a Rosetta Stone decree, decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle te ...

. His translation of

Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; grc-gre, Ὀρέστης ) was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the brother of Electra. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness and ...

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek ...

was published in 1770 and was admitted to the

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions ( epig ...

the same year. Two of the lithographic copies made of the Rosetta Stone in Egypt had reached the

Institut de France The (; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the Académie Française. It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute m ...

, in

, by 1801. There Gabriel de La Porte du Theil set to work on a translation of the Greek portion, though he was almost immediately dispatched elsewhere on the orders of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

, leaving his unfinished work in the hands of a colleague,

Hubert-Pascal Ameilhon Hubert-Pascal Ameilhon (born in Paris, 7 April 1730; died 1811) was a French historian and librarian. He first worked at the Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, the city of Paris historical library. In 1766 he published a history of tra ...

. In 1803 Ameilhon produced the first published translations of the Greek text, in both

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and French to ensure that it would circulate widely.Ameilhon, Hubert Pascal. Éclaircissemens sur l'inscription grecque du monument trouvé à Rosette, contenant un décret des prêtres de l'Égypte en l'honneur de Ptolémée Épiphane, le cinquième des rois Ptolémées. Paris: Institut National, 1803

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Theil, Gabriel De La Porte Du 1742 births 1815 deaths 19th-century French historians Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres French male non-fiction writers