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The History of Rome
7Theodor Mommsen
Mommsen's massive nineteenth-century history and the foundation of modern Roman scholarship — awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first historian ever so honored.
GBM Assessment (Score: 7/10)
The History of Rome is a massive work of nineteenth-century historiography, a scholarly supreme work that established the foundations of modern Roman historical studies. Theodor Mommsen brought unprecedented philological rigor and narrative power to the study of the Roman Republic, producing a work of such distinction that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1902 — one of the rare instances in which a historian received the honor.
The work was written during the era of German unification, Mommsen's History of Rome reflects both the author's immense scholarly ambition and his engagement with the political currents of his own time; Mommsen was also a prominent political figure. The work established the modern scholarly approach to Roman history and remains a milestone in the field, recognized by the Nobel Committee as a supreme achievement of literary and historical art.
Germany, 1854
Mommsen publishes his History of Rome, a work of scholarship so vivid and politically engaged that it will win the Nobel Prize in Literature fifty years later. German universities dominate every field; the research seminar, the doctorate, the Humboldtian ideal of Wissenschaft — these are Prussian inventions that the rest of the world is copying. Mommsen writes Rome's history as a liberal nationalist, casting Caesar as a great man hemmed in by a decadent aristocracy. The parallel to Prussia's own situation — a vigorous state awaiting unification — is unmistakable.
Awards & Adaptations
NOBEL 1902. Foundation of modern Roman historiography.
Recommended Edition
W.P. Dickson (1862-66)
