Barthold Georg Niebuhr was born on the 27th of August 1776 in Copenhagen. His father Carsten Niebuhr worked as a prominent German geographer who resided there. The young boy received his early education from this parent. By 1794 he had become an accomplished classical scholar capable of reading several languages. He entered the University of Kiel that same year to study law and philosophy. There he formed an important friendship with Madame Hensler. She was the widowed daughter-in-law of one of the professors and six years older than himself. He also made the acquaintance of her sister Amelie Behrens whom he subsequently married.
Banking And State Service
In 1796 he left Kiel to become private secretary to Count Schimmelmann. This man served as the Danish finance minister at the time. Niebuhr gave up this appointment in 1798 to travel in Great Britain. He spent a year at Edinburgh studying agriculture and physics during that period. He later stated that his residence in England provided him with an important key to Roman history. He believed it necessary to know civil life by personal observation to understand states like those of antiquity. In 1799 he returned to Denmark where he entered state service. He became chief director of the national bank in 1804. In September 1806 he quit the Denmark post for a similar appointment in Prussia. He arrived in Prussia on the eve of the catastrophe of Jena. He accompanied the fugitive government to Königsberg where he rendered considerable service in the commissariat.The Discovery In Verona
Niebuhr accepted the post of ambassador at Rome in 1816 before his departure. On his way to Rome he discovered the long-lost Institutes of Gaius in the cathedral library of Verona. This manuscript had been lost for centuries until that moment. He edited the work afterwards though Savigny also worked on it. Niebuhr communicated the discovery under the impression that he had found a portion of Ulpian instead. The reason he visited Verona remains a matter of controversy among scholars today. Some allege he was on a secret mission to obtain the manuscript others claim it was a fortunate coincidence. During his residence in Rome he discovered and published fragments of Cicero and Livy. He aided Cardinal Mai in his edition of Cicero's De re publica. He shared in framing the plan of the great work Beschreibung Roms with Christian Charles Josias Bunsen and Ernst Zacharias Platner. As minister he brought about the understanding between Prussia and the Pope signalized by the bull De salute animarum in 1821.