Theodor Mommsen

• 1. A Boy From Garding

  ›

  Theodor Mommsen entered the world on the 30th of November 1817 in Garding, a small town within the Duchy of Schleswig. His father served as a Lutheran minister while his family roots traced back to Friesland. He grew up in Bad Oldesloe where he attended the Gymnasium Christianeum for four years before studying at home. Financial constraints prevented him from attending Göttingen so he enrolled at the University of Kiel instead. There he studied jurisprudence from 1838 until 1843 when he earned his Doctor of Roman Law degree. During these formative years he shared a room with Theodor Storm who would later become a renowned poet. Together they published a collection of poems called Liederbuch dreier Freunde alongside his brother Tycho.

  123

• 2. Chasing Stone Inscriptions

  ›

  Mommsen began his career by publishing inscriptions from the Neapolitan Kingdom in 1852. He envisioned a complete collection of all known ancient Latin inscriptions that would eventually span seventeen volumes. Bartolomeo Borghesi of San Marino provided crucial training and impetus for this massive project. Fifteen of these volumes appeared during Mommsen's lifetime while five were prepared personally by him. The final volume did not arrive until 1986 long after his death. His method relied on autopsy which meant checking every modern transcription against the original stone. This approach differed sharply from previous collections that accepted copies without verification. The Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum became the foundation for systematic epigraphy studies worldwide.

  8

• 3. Politics And A Volatile Temper

  ›

  He served as a delegate to the Prussian House of Representatives between 1863 and 1866. Later he joined the Reichstag from 1881 to 1884 representing various liberal parties. Mommsen strongly disagreed with Otto von Bismarck regarding social policies in 1881. His criticism was so severe that he narrowly avoided prosecution for his words. He advocated for the assimilation of ethnic minorities into German society rather than their exclusion. In 1879 he fought against antisemitism when colleague Heinrich von Treitschke launched a political campaign. Mommsen wrote a harsh pamphlet denouncing those views and co-founded the Association for Combating Antisemitism in 1890. Yet he maintained a militant attitude toward Slavic nations throughout his life. An 1897 letter to the Neue Freie Presse called Czechs apostles of barbarism.

  17

• 4. The Five Volume Epic

  ›

  His main work Römische Geschichte appeared across five volumes published between 1854 and 1885. The first volume covered Rome from its earliest times up to 44 B.C. Subsequent volumes detailed Roman constitutional law criminal law and provincial administration. Mark Twain witnessed a banquet at the University of Berlin where the house rose to honor him. Guests shouted stamped and clapped while banging beer mugs as he entered. This narrative style combined rigorous scholarship with dramatic storytelling that captivated readers globally. Alfred Thayer Mahan formulated his thesis on sea power after reading these historical accounts. Bernard Shaw cited Mommsen's interpretation of Julius Caesar as inspiration for his play Caesar and Cleopatra. The unfinished nature of the final volumes did not diminish their enduring impact on classical studies.

  12

• 5. A Nobel For Nonfiction

  ›

  Mommsen received the 1902 Nobel Prize in Literature for his historical writings. He was nominated by eighteen members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences before winning the award. This recognition marked one of the very few instances where non-fiction authors won the prize. His work on Roman history had already earned him foreign membership in the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also held honorary citizenship of Rome and was elected to the American Antiquarian Society in 1870. The medal Pour le Mérite arrived in 1868 acknowledging his academic achievements decades earlier. These honors reflected a career spanning over half a century of intense scholarly output.

  56

• 6. Fire And Family Lineage

  ›

  At 2 a.m. on the 7th of July 1880 fire erupted in the upper floor workroom-library of his Berlin home. Mommsen burned while attempting to remove valuable papers from the blaze at Marchstraße 6. Several old manuscripts turned to ashes including Manuscript 0.4.36 borrowed from Trinity College Cambridge. Two other important manuscripts from Brussels and Halle were also destroyed during this disaster. He married Marie Auguste Reimer in 1854 and they raised sixteen children together. Their oldest daughter Maria married Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff who became a great Classics scholar. Grandson Theodor Ernst Mommsen served as a professor of medieval history in the United States. Hans Mommsen and Wolfgang Mommsen emerged as German historians among their descendants. Institutions like the Gymnasium Christianeum in Bad Oldesloe still bear his name today.

  810