Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Karl Friedrich Hermann

HERMANN, Karl Friedrich (1804–1856), one of the leading representatives of classical investigation in Germany, was born August 4, 1804, at Frankfort-on-the-Main. His early education was received partly at Frankfort and partly at Weilburg, and his university studies were carried on at Heidelberg and Leipsic. On his return from a tour in Italy he habilitated in 1826 as privat-docent in Heidelberg; in 1832 he was called to Marburg as professor ordinarius of classical literature; and in 1842 he was transferred to Göttingen to fill the chair left vacant by the death of Otfried Müller. Both at Marburg and Göttingen he likewise held the office of director of the philological seminary. He died at Göttingen on the 8th of January 1856. Hermann’s scholarship took in a wide and ever-widening horizon; but his vision was clear and steady, and he knew well how to portray for other eyes the scenes that shaped themselves with new life before his own. Among his more important publications are the Lehrbuch der griechischen Antiquitäten, of which the first portion (Heidelberg, 1841) deals with political, the second (1846) with religious, and the third (1852) with domestic antiquities; the Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie (Heidelberg, 1839); an edition of the Platonic Dialogues (6 vols., Leipsic, 1851–52); and Culturgeschichte der Griechen und Römer (Göttingen, 1857–58, 2 vols.), published after his death by G. Schmidt. A collection of Abhandlungen und Beiträge zur class. Literatur und Alterthumskunde appeared in 1849, but the great mass of his essays and brochures, which deal with a vast variety of archæological, artistic, critical, and philosophical subjects, are still unarranged. See Lechner, Zur Erinnerung an K. F. Hermann (Berlin, 1864).