Wilhelm Dittenberger | |
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| Born | (1840-08-31)August 31, 1840 |
| Died | December 29, 1906(1906-12-29) (aged 66) |
Wilhelm (William) Dittenberger (August 31, 1840 inHeidelberg – December 29, 1906 inHalle (Saale)) was a Germanphilologist in classical epigraphy.
Wilhelm Dittenberger was the son of the Protestant theologianWilhelm Theophor Dittenberger. After attending school inHeidelberg andWeimar (then directed byHermann Sauppe), he studied classical philology at Jena from 1859 and transferred toGöttingen in 1861, where he was reunited with Hermann Sauppe and received his doctorate at the beginning of 1863 for a work on the Athenianephebes. From autumn of that year, he taught at the Göttingen Gymnasium while he completed hishabilitation onSallust at theUniversity of Göttingen. Initially, Dittenberger remained a schoolteacher, becoming a teacher at theJoachimsthalsches Gymnasium inBerlin in 1865, at theRudolstadt Gymnasium from 1867, and at the gymnasium inQuedlinburg from 1873 to 1874. In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Classical Philology at theUniversity of Halle. He was a corresponding member of thePrussian Academy of Sciences and an ordinary member of theGerman Archaeological Institute.
Dittenberger's research focus was Greek epigraphy. His name is associated above all with the edited collectionsSylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum (later re-edited byFriedrich Hiller von Gaertringen) andOrientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. ForInscriptiones Graecae, Dittenberger was responsible for the Athenian inscriptions of the Roman period, ofMegaris andBoeotia, and ofPhocis,Lokris,Aetolia,Acarnania and theIonian Islands. In addition he edited the inscriptions ofOlympia (withKarl Purgold) and the 6th to 11th editions of the widely used commentary onJulius Caesar'sDe Bello Gallico begun byFriedrich Kraner.
His son, Heinrich Dittenberger (1875–1952), was a lawyer inHalle,Leipzig, andBerlin, as well as Chief Director of theGerman Bar Association from 1910 to 1933.[1]
After his death in 1907, his library was acquired by theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, as was the library ofJohannes Vahlen, slightly later (1913). Together, the two libraries form theDittenberger-Vahlen Collection of Classical Texts, containing over 15,000 books and 17,000 reprints. In 2000, the university began the digitisation of this collection with the assistance of theNational Endowment for the Humanities.
Dittenberger's tomb is located in the Nordfriedhof in Halle.
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