852 THEODORE MOMMSEN. 



delivered over 10,000 lectures to the students of Berlin. In his mar- 

 ried life he was eminently successful, and his very numerous children 

 (he had 14, we believe) caused him no particular trouble. Recognized 

 as the head of the great historical school of Roman antiquity in Ger- 

 many, honored and venerated, not to say worshiped by sovereigns, 

 princes, scholars, and men of the world alike, he passed the last thirty 

 3^ears of his life in a position of exceptional dignity and influence. 



Even in his conflict with the Iron Chancellor he conducted his trial 

 in person and with success. The courts finally acquitted him of the 

 political crime imputed to him by Bismarck. He traveled exten- 

 sively, and especially in the last twentN'-five years of his life lie devel- 

 oped a perfect passion for the hunt of manuscripts. Printed liooks 

 seemed to have lost their charm for him. What delighted him was a 

 manuscript. He was a very frequent guest at the Bodleian and the 

 British Museum, at the Bibliotheque Nationale, and at the great libra- 

 ries in Italy. Even manuscripts of the early Middle Ages— thatis, man- 

 uscripts reflecting only the last dim rays of the sunset of antiquity — 

 excited his interest in a very high degree; and the number of authors 

 that he edited with the minutest care was ver}^ considerable. His mind 

 was influenced chiefly by the aims and methods of the philologist and 

 the attitude and ability of the student of law. Now that we may 

 clearly overlook the wdiole career of that extraordinar}^ man, it becomes 

 more and more manifest that, although Mommsen is known to the 

 general reader only or preeminently as the historian of Rome, as the 

 author of a famous historv of Rome, yet, on impartial and closer 

 examination of the case, it will be found that Mommsen in reality had 

 neither the passion nor the highest capacity of the historian proper. 



His was the genius of anal3'sis rather than of synthesis. He excelled 

 in monographs very much more than in works putting together in 

 their final expression a vast array of facts. This seems to be in utter 

 contrast to the fact that Mommsen has published great treatises both 

 on Roman public or constitutional law. on Roman chronology, and on 

 Roman criminal law. However, applying to Mommsen the strictest 

 measure of criticism, we cannot but see that every one of those great 

 treatises is rather a collection of monographs than a work giving a 

 direct and full insight into the working principles of Roman institu- 

 tions. Mommsen classifies, shelves, labels, and numbers both neatl}^ 

 and well; he enlightens but little. 



The danger of a man like Mommsen is the false impression under 

 which thousands of scholars, and through them the general public, 

 have been about the real problems and the real importance of Roman 

 history. The massiveness of Mommsen's information, the mere bulk 

 of the works he has published to almost the last day of his life, the 

 tone of finality and strict formality pervading every line he ever pub- 

 lished, has naturally engendered the idea that he has not onh^ furnished 



