SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars t Friedrich Solmsen EVER SINCE publishing "Wilamowitz in his Last Ten Years," 1 I have been urged by colleagues and friends on both sides of the Atlantic to produce an account of developments in German classical scholarship between the two wars. What my late friend Hermann Strasburger deplored as widespread ignor­ ance of this period and a minimal sense of continuity with it­ due of course to the intervening twelve years of darkness and destruction-is proved by the abundance in recent articles of false and half-true statements, suggestions of questionable mo­ tives, and other distortions of what took place in that period. The reconstruction I offer here is based almost entirely on my own recollections of those years in Berlin. It cannot and should not be regarded as representative of Germany as a whole; simi­ lar reports from other centers, especially Munich and Leipzig, probably also Gottingen and Kiel, would complement the pic­ ture in essential ways. I In the years immediately after 1918, teachers of the classics were confronted with a new attitude on the part of the public. Among the many traditions affected by the catastrophe of the old political order was the primacy of the Humanistic Gymnasi­ um, which normally included in its curriculum six weekly hours of Greek for the last six years before the final exam. The 1 GRRS 20 (1979) 89-122. While I have made it a point to avoid repetitions, the present essay is inadequate in form as well as in content; its only justifica­ tion is that some developments recorded in it ought not to be forgotten or dis­ torted. I regret that matters of gossip could not be completely avoided and that some scholars who showed me kindness are presented in a not very favor­ able light. 117 SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 118 CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN cultural hegemony of Greece so emphatically proclaimed by Winckelmann, Goethe, Schiller, and others early in the nine­ teenth century inspired Wilhelm von Humboldt's conception of this type of education. Despite attacks from time to time, the gymnasium had maintained its honored position for nearly a century, but the beliefs and convictions that had shaped it had by and large receded. Even teachers possessed of a flair for liter­ ary qualities were at times embarrassed to define the unique educational value of the years devoted mainly to Greek gram­ mar and Homer-and besides Homer, normally one or two plays of Sophocles, a good deal of Xenophon, and a sampling of Herodotus. After the loss of the First World War, left-wing governments and progressive elements of the public argued energetically against a privileged position for the humanistic school. The demand for practical results and the notion that Greek was useless for a future physician, lawyer, or business­ man were important components of the attack, but there was also the notion that German literature rather than Greek or Lat­ in should dominate the curriculum, and this view had many sup­ porters. The effect of these new currents was the disappearance of some gymnasia and the threat facing those that survived. There was a need for reform and reorganization and-most of all, it would seem-a new understanding of what humanism was and what it had to offer. How did this critical situation affect the academic study of the classics and in particular of Greek around 1920? The first an­ swer is that there were considerably fewer students than before 1914. If in a large university the enrollments had declined from some two hundred to, say, forty or fifty, the quality and the mo­ tivation would normally be superior; but the students who re­ turned from the war-and hardly less those coming directly from the schools-were infected by a critical spirit, struggled with new problems, and had a new outlook and made new de­ mands. If the literary works of the Greeks embodied profound truths and superlative values, should not the teachers focus on these? Why was there such concern with the personal circum­ stances of the poets? Why was there discussion of conflicting traditions about their lives and of personal or intellectual rela­ tions in the world of letters? To be sure, some measure of liter­ ary appreciation was included in the courses offered by most professors, but the criteria of literary merit were undergoing a SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN 119 change. The favorite authors of the youth-Holderlin, Nietzsche, Stefan George-set a new model of greatness, and Gindolf's incomparable books on Goethe, George, the Roman­ tics, and other poets achieved a degree of penetration that made students wonder whether something of similar power could also be produced by classicists. Criticism of the Wissenschaft des Nichtwissenswerten had appeared even before the war, but was brought home much more forcefully now. Did the high priests of the beleaguered temple respond to this situation? For Wilamowitz, Eduard Meyer, and Eduard Schwartz, the questioning of Greek was just a symptom of the general confusion and corruption they sensed in the early years of the Weimar republic. By and large they ignored it or treated it with irony. Confrontations developed rarely, and of collisions in print the most significant example is almost certainly Eduard Schwartz's merciless review of a pamphlet by Paul Friedlander and Walther Kranz,2 in which the former advocated for the uni­ versities, the latter for the gymnasia, a reform in the direction of wholehearted concentration upon the great "Schopfungen." It was the implied neglect of textual criticism and biographical or historical background that provoked Schwartz into extolling'tEX­ Vll, especially editorial 'tEXVll, as a most noble pursuit and as an end in itself, with no need of any synthesis (i.e., literary history or artistic appreciation). Not many of the reform-minded younger classicists would agree with Friedlander's extreme position. How far then did they actually go? Generalizations are impossible; still, an inten­ sive effort at penetrating to the personality of the great authors, their spiritual and artistic traits, and their achievements was char­ acteristic of scholars as different as Jaeger, Eduard Fraenkel, Reinhardt, Hermann Frankel, Friedlander, Regenbogen, Kling­ ner, Von der Miihll, and many others of this generation and their pupils. Attention to externals, while losing ground, varied naturally with the subject; I recall Jaeger in his course on Aes­ chylus keeping it at a minimum, while in that on Demosthenes it loomed large. Some of the most brilliant in this group never edited an author, and no one as far as I can discern devoted his 2 The pamphlet in question being unavailable to me, I rely for its content on the report and the quotations in Schwartz's review in the first voiume of his Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin 1938). SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 120 CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN entire productive energy to codices and editions. However, a new closeness to the classical texts was typical, with a greater readiness to listen, ponder, and understand rather than judge and criticize. Greek literature of the imperial age received a mini­ mum of attention (except for Plotinus), and even Hellenistic poetry, which Wilamowitz had done so much to render alive, suffered neglect. It seems also worth recording that in filling vacant chairs of Greek or Latin, increased attention was given to a candidate's effectiveness as a teacher and his ability to defend the subject. Among the professors of Greek who were born in the 1860's and 1870's I knew some who completely ignored the new de­ mands, and some others-e.g. Max Pohlenz-who admitted that there was a new generation for which they could develop a certain amount of sympathy. As has just been seen, however, one has to turn to those born in the 1880's to find a strongly affirmative attitude and an eagerness to develop a new under­ standing and the right way to convey it. In Karl Reinhardt's Po­ seidonios (1920) new ground was broken; the departure from the 'tradition' was even proclaimed, but the author was compe­ tent to unite Wissenschaft and Leben. The book caused a sensa­ tion; it was admired by many who regretted their ignorance of most of the subjects covered but grasped something of Rein­ hardt's 'inner form'-the persistent endeavor to distinguish be­ tween dogma, doctrine, and doxography on the one hand, and what was uniquely personal on the other. It may seem odd to mention after Poseidonios Eduard Fraenkel's Plautinisches im Plautus (1922). Here were no difficulties of understanding, no reasons to doubt the soundness of original scholarship; yet the way in which the results of the analysis were presented showed a contemporary feeling for literary qualities, while the elegance and liveliness of the presentation distinguished this book from the sternly scholarly language of Fraenkel's revered teacher, Friedrich Leo, in his Plautinische Forschungen. After Reinhardt and Fraenkel had shown, albeit in very differ­ ent ways, a new vitality in classical research-more specifically a desire and capacity to penetrate deeper to the core of great figures-there appeared in 1923 Jaeger's Aristoteles: a book that Diels, who knew much of its content but did not live to see it, had prophesied would "revolutionierend wirken." This proph­ ecy was fulfilled. Here warm and sympathetic interpretation SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN 121 went through and beyond the text to the/ersonality of the auth­ or and for the first time actually reveale Aristotle as a person. What for centuries or indeed millennia had been a system, im­ personal and authoritative, was suddenly transformed into a human being with human experiences and human develop­ ment. Aristotle also, for the hrst time, became a part of Greek intellectual (as distinct from merely philosophical) history. Re­ cently described by an English philosopher Qonathan Barnes) as perhaps "the most influential work written on Aristotle in this century," it was also a symbol and representative of the new post-World War I attitude towards the classics and of a new sen­ sibility and changed aspirations. The new attitude may be de­ fined as a judicious combination of closeness to great thoughts and reverential distance from great minds. What was not ex­ pected was the flood of studies in the next decades, suggesting al­ ternatives to one phase or another in Aristotle's development. A few critics went so far as to question the basic conct"pt of the book. Others maintained that if Aristotle developed at all, it was rather by moving closer and closer to Plato. Jaeger's reaction to such criticism varied. At first he tended to laugh it off, describ­ ing it ironicaily: "Ich denke mir das und das so und so und das stimmt dann nicht zu Jaeger. ... " The subjectivity and irrespon­ sibility of most attacks deserved nothing better. In the end the persistent polemic of von Arnim (Vienna), who was seconded by Paul Gohlke in Berlin, depressed Jaeger severely and he needed considerable time to recover his balance. (On the crux of the polemic, the authenticity of the Magna Moralia, Wilamo­ witz's discovery of a textual variant proved Jaeger to be right; in another major controversy, on the question of the date of bio­ logical research carried on in Lesbos, his opponents were in the end shown guilty of gross negligence in maintaining a date ear­ lier than Jaeger had proposed.) In 1924 when the galloping inflation had finally been stopped and political and economic conditions in Germany seemed on the way to stabilization, the most distinguished representatives of the younger group came together for a meeting in Weimar to consider the ways and means of expressing themselves. This meeting, which must have been preceded by a considerable num­ ber of informal conferences and deliberations, included also ar­ chaeologists and ancient historians of comparable orientation. Scholars found themselves confronted by a twofold task: on the SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 122 CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN one hand they felt that certain conditions in the profession ought to be imrroved and reformed; on the other they realized the necessity 0 again securing for the study of ancient civiliza­ tion the interest of a wider general public. To begin with the eso­ teric situation, what these men would have liked was a new peri­ odical in addition to Hermes, Philologus, and Rheinisches Mu­ seum to serve as the vehicle of new ideas. Financial considera­ tions proved this not feasible. Postponing the project in the hope that there might be changes in the editorial staff of the per­ iodicals just mentioned, they decided on a journal devoted to re­ views, a Kritische Zeitschrift fur die Altertumswissenschaft, or Gnomon. Archaeology was represented by Rodenwaldt and Ludwig Curtius, ancient history by Gelzer and Wilhelm We­ ber, and the board also included the philosopher Ernst Hoff­ mann and the Swiss scholar Peter Von der Miihll. Not wishing to exclude other generations, the editors also secured for the board three senior scholars: Eduard Schwartz, the eminent linguist Wilhelm Schulze, and the papyrologist Wilhelm Schu­ bart. Richard Harder, a recent Ph.D. of Jaeger, was chosen as managing editor. With extraordinary energy, skill, and political prudence, Harder succeeded within a few years in establishing Gnomon as one of the most important classical journals in the world. Its international character deserves to be emphasiLed, for in reviewing books of foreign scholars, and soliciting re­ views from foreign scholars, Gnomon in the later '20's did much to rebuild academic contacts during the postwar period. 3 It was only in the first years of Gnomon that Fraenkel could take thirty-five pages for a review of Housman's Lucan,4 or Pas- 3 In view of the numerous international conventions, symposia, etc., of the 1970's and '80's, it must be hard to imagine the isolation and resulting ig­ norance on the part of German students about classical scholarship in other countries. To be sure Oxford texts were used (e.g. for Plato, Euripides, Cicero), and the average student might at examination know about eight or ten for­ eign scholars (Murray, Shorey, etc.). The professors were of course familiar with achievements elsewhere and gradually filled the gap after 1914. But when Norden and Jaeger returned from visits to receive honors in England they brought tales of an unknown world. Regenbogen pointed out repeatedly that classicists abroad knew German scholarship better than Germans what was done beyond the frontiers. 4 The rather critical review produced an angry postcard from Housman: "Vobis criticis hoc est commune ut vobis me multo magis circumspecti videa­ mini; estis autem multo minus." There followed specific points in which Hous- SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN 123 quali discuss Paul Maas' Textkritik in a review that he himself called unique in the history of reviewing since it took up more space than the work reviewed. At the beginning of 1934, when Fraenkel was forced from office, Curtius, Reinhardt, and others resigned in protest, and Gnomon was saved by the reduced board of Harder, Gelzer, and Rodenwaldt. To recapture the interest of the educated public at large, Die Antike was launched, with subscription to it tied to a newly-or­ ganized Gesellschaft fur antike Kultur. Die Antike, elegant in its makeup and intellectually demanding, appeared quarterly be­ ginning with 1925. To go into detail about Jaeger's editorial poli­ cies would require a special article; suffice it to recall the great extent to which he resorted to archaeological articles with first­ class reproductions to make sure of contact with the prospec­ tive readers' eyes as well as minds. Other articles characteristic of the early volumes, I cite at random: Paul Friedlander's three articles on the Attic tragedians, a number of Stenzel's searching studies on Greek philosophy, and Regenbogen's new under­ standing of Herodotus. The Gesellschaft developed satisfactor­ ily, and its seriousness of interest was proved signally by the number of members, which remained constant even in the years of the economic depression after 1929, when some finan­ cial retrenchment became imperative for almost everyone in Germany. In Berlin the Gesellschaft was large enough to spon­ sor a number of meetings and public lectures. Ludwig Curti us' archaeological lectures impressed by the cosmopolitan breadth of his culture; Walter F. Otto's new conception of Artemis was admired even by those who remained less than fully convinced. Besides serving as vice president (and in fact the guiding spirit)5 for the Gesellschaft fur antike Kultur and editor of Die Antike, Jaeger was also elected head of the Philologische Fach- man was held to prove his case against Fraenkel. Despite this and some other exchanges, Housman received Fraenkel cordially when he came to England in 1934 and supported him warmly for the Oxford chair (one sentence, the exact wording of which 1 cannot guarantee: "'I wrote this recommendation with regret since 1 had hoped he would become my successor at Cambridge"). Other supporters of Fraenkel on this occasion included W. M. Lindsay, Bow­ ra, Eduard Schwartz, Norden, Wilhelm Schulze, and Pasquali. Gilbert Mur­ ray and others well-disposed to Fraenkel were on the Committee of Elections for this chair. 5 As president was chosen, more Anglico, a member of the German govern­ ment, Johannes Popitz, undersecretary of the Department of Finance. SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 124 CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN tagung, which was founded in 1924, met again in 1925 with a pro­ gram of lectures, and in 1926 and afterwards every second year, perpetuating the spirit of the 1924 meeting, yet unlike that meet­ ing open to academic teachers of every age-group, plus a few specially-invited persons. On every occasion questions of foli­ cy were discussed, relating in part to the organization 0 the Fachtagung itself, but even more frequently to desirable and less desirable trends in the humanistic gymnasium and such con­ crete problems as the place of linguistics in the training of stu­ dents. A report by Gelzer about Byzantine history provoked different opinions between those regarding Byzantine history as part of ancient history and those including it in the Middle Ages. Of individual lectures only a few may be mentioned. At the convention of 1925 Wilhelm Weber built "Greek History of the second millennium B.C." on Forrer's recent identification of Achaeans and other familiar Greek names in Hittite texts (he courted disaster, for Eduard Schwartz, who rejected Forrer's theories, ripped Weber's confident assertions to pieces). Nor­ Jen spoke at an early meeting about one of the archaic Roman religious texts he was to treat much later in his final book; Schadewaldt discussed the development of Thucydides' histori­ ography. The convention of 1930, which it was necessary to or­ ganize in Naumberg instead of in Weimar, was the most remark­ able of all because its program consisted of a symposium on "Das Problem des Klassischen und die Antike." The eight lec­ tures composing it were published by Jaeger shortly after the meeting. The contributions of Fraenkel, Friedlander, Schade­ waldt, and the archaeologist Bernhard Schweitzer were con­ ceived in a new spirit. Its high intellectual level secured for the symposium a sympathetic recf'?tion. With this symposium the new sensitivity for the wesenhafte and wertvolle in ancient civilization may be said to have achieved its form. Scholars of different background had met for a com­ mon purpose and found themselves in basic agreement on the subject-in fact on a subject that the extreme historicism of Wila­ mowitz considered futile. Among important works reflecting the new outlook, most published after 1933 but with their roots in our period, may be mentioned, if only titulo tenus: Rein­ hardes Sophokles (1934), Jaeger's Demosthenes (1936), Schade­ waldt's Iliasstudien (1938), and the two volumes of Friedlander's Platon (1928-30). Klingner's fine articles on the great Latin auth- SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN 125 ors, most of them produced after 1933, should not go unmen­ tioned. Finally, it would not be fair to omit two books which, ironically, were written or at least completed abroad. One is Hermann Frankel's Dichtung und Philosophie des fruhen Grie­ chentums (New York 1951); the other, Eduard Fraenkel's Hor­ ace (Oxford 1957). II In Berlin the younger academic teachers could give more of their time to students and were expected to be closer to their in­ terests and aspirations. Nobody could live up more fully to that expectation than Eduard Fraenkel, who sta:-ted his academic career as Privatdozent and Ausserordentlicher Professor in Ber­ lin in 1917-23. He kept warm and firm contact with a large num­ ber of students, remained informed of what they were doing and, whether consul ted or not, infl uenced the planning of their next work. Fraenkel's lectures rarely treated problems as prob­ lems; more generally he had found the solution, and what he offered was a synthesis of old and new insights presented with extraordinary dynamism, interspersed with glimpses right and left at related topics. The intensity of his scholarly engagement was contagious. Positive as he was about his opinions, he never­ theless proved receptive to arguments and objections, exam­ ined the material afresh, and encouraged-in fact, often joined in-the exploration of unresolved questions. The enormous range of his knowledge and his quick grasp enabled him to help on almost every subject; after all, he had an equal competence in literary, philological, and linguistic problems. He avoided in­ terfering with the policies of senior colleagues and in accord­ ance with prevailing usage did not choose for his courses the major authors covered by the ordinarii. It may be, however, that Norden, who in regular intervals had a lecture course on Plautus, relinquished his monopoly while Fraenkel was pre­ paring his first book. Fraenkel taught courses on Aristophanes, Catullus, and Terence, and in his last semester in Berlin on "das archaische Latein und seine Verskunst." There was nothing yet of the gloomy and brusque Fraenkel whom people in Oxford -especially foreign visitors-feared to meet. On the contrary, he was always accessible. His house was open e.g. to Schade- SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 126 CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN waldt, Knoche, and Annemarie Bethmann,6 and on every sec­ ond Saturday a group of about twenty-five students were wel­ comed for an informal get-together. The younger students profited from the experience of those close to their examina­ tions, and the senior students presented and exchanged their critical reactions to recent publications or other readings and tried out their own ideas on one another. Fraenkel himself moved easily from group to group discussing matters of scholar­ ship, but conversing also about concerts, plays, lectures, and even on more personal matters such as the living and housing conditions of the students-no simple matter in those years of post-war misery. Interest in these troubles was also taken by his very charming wife, herself the author of an excellent disser­ tation (De dialecto Arcadica), but now preoccupied with prac­ tical matters. In the one semester of my presence-Fraenkel's last in Berlin-Zuntz once gave an informal talk about questions of musical harmony, and on another evening Hajo Holborn re­ ported on new tendencies in contemporary theology. I under­ stand that earlier there was a reading by the group of Greek plays, in particular of Aristophanes. Birds was Fraenkel's favor­ ite play, which he also read later with a similar group in Kid. For students in the proseminars Fraenkel had a successor in the person of Otto Regenbogen. Fraenke1's equal as a superb teacher, he was no less accessible to students and probably had absorbed as broad a range of learning; but while he was a good interpreter of poetry, his principal interest was in prose-most of all Ionic and early Attic prose. Having been closest to Die1s he often referred to and tried to convey something of the "Ethos von Hermann Diels.» In fact there was a decidedly moral and moralizing strain in his personality, and it was most probably Jaeger's influence that turned him from a stern mor­ alism of a broadly-speaking Kantian type to the richer and freer heritage of Greek ethics. In this spirit he saw to it that even in a primaril y text-cri tical pro seminar the 'Werte' em bodied in the text would never be lost sight of, and it was quite remarkable 6 Annemarie Bethmann, like the slightly older Ulrich Knoche, followed F raenkel in 1923 to Kiel, intending to finish her studies there. She returned after a while, however, and wrote a dissertation under Norden on archaisms in Sallust. She married Hajo Holborn; their daughter is Hannah Holborn Gray, president of the University of Chicago. SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN 127 how much of this he could bring into the discussion of, say, the fifth book of De finibus. Roman philhellenism in its various forms and manifestations, Greek conceptions of 7tOAtC; and 7tO­ At'tEta, 8Epa7tEta 'l'uxilc; as practised by the various Hellenistic schools, and the ~tOC; 'tEAEl(x;of Aristotle's ethics (which for Aris­ totle had become a reality in Plato, and for Germans in Goethe) are topics that I happen to remember. In eloquence no academ­ ic teacher I have known came near him, and his splendid Cicer­ onian periods, which were generally admired (and occasionally made fun of), were never empty. Before his habilitation he had several years of full-time employment at a gymnasium; and his wholehearted dedication to his teaching (which he prepared meticulously) may have kept him from getting his projects ready for publication in the 1920's. Later psychological prob­ lems and hard political experience had a similar effect. The RE ar­ ticle on Theophrastus, composed while he was debarred from teaching, gives perhaps the best (though not l complete) idea of his broad and penetrating scholarship. Editions of Theophras­ tus' botanical works were completed, but not to the publisher's liking. Other projects, including chapters of his dissertation on the Hippocratica and a text of the Old Oligarch ('Xenophon' 7tOAt'tEta 'A81lva tcov) never received the final touch. Al though Regenbogen was fully active at Berlin only two years (Easter 1923-Easter 1925) before taking up the chair at Heidelberg, the space I have given him is not out of proportion to the impact he made. Rudolf Pfeiffer taught as Associate Professor less than a whole semester in Berlin. He had been called there from Mu­ nich, where he was Privatdozent, early in the spring semester (1923); before this semester ended he knew that he would move on to a full professorship in Hamburg. As the time was too short for a regular lecture course, he conducted a prosem­ inar (upper level) on the letters of Italian humanists. To become in this way acquainted with Petrarch, Salutati, Poggio, and Bruni was a privilege that some of us relived by returning from time to time to these delightful writings. But that Pfeiffer would some­ day (after the completion of his Callimachus) be declared "the greatest living classicist" (by Jacoby, himself a candidate for this place of honor) was not expected during his term in Berlin. Pfeiffer's successor was Fritz Klingner, a pupil of Paul Fried- SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 128 CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN BERLIN Hinder; but now the government allowed him only the status of Privatdozent. He taught three semesters before he too moved on to Hamburg. He had his following among the students, which is not astonishing in view of the originality evident in his analysis of Boethius' Consolatio philosophiae and his brilliant An­ trittsvorlesung, "Rom als Idee." He was commonly described as a "feinsinniger Interpret." Although a Latinist, he belonged like Beckmann and Fuchs to Wilamowitz's Graeca, and in an even more private Graeca read Plotinus with Harder and Scha­ dewaldt. That he would henceforth be one of the quartet­ Fraenkel, Jachmann, and Stroux being the others-of immedi­ ately obvious candidates for an important vacancy for a Latinist could be no surprise. Fraenkel's strong hold and influence on the bright students was hardly impaired during the first three semesters of Jaeger's presence. For Jaeger, as one might expect, was preoccupied with getting his young family settled in Berlin, finding his bear­ ings, and most of all with bringing his Aristoteles to a con­ clusion. The three courses that he offered in these semesters­ Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Aeschylus' Prometheus-had been taught by him earlier in Basel or Kiel, though he clearly re­ examined the problems. Beginning with the summer semester of 1923, it was understood that Jaeger had most to offer in his teaching: for one thing, Wilamowitz did not give what one might think he could offer, and Jaeger's reputation was hence­ forth unrivaled. Once for all it must be said that to those not personally ac­ quainted with Jaeger, it is impossible to convey the magnetism and charm of his personality. One aspect that stands out and in which he differed from all oth>Q:-from Wilamowitz, Norden, Fraenkel, Regenbogen, and Deubner-was his patience and quiet, unhurried tempo. This was as characteristic of his teaching as of conversations in his office. In his lecture courses and even more in semin.ar and proseminar, he seldom pre­ sented firm and fixed opinions. Calling on him in his office, one found him invariably relaxed and ready to give unstintingly of his time. He listened patiently to everything that was brought up, waiting to the end before he came forward with an opinion or perhaps a decision of his own. (These decisions were never apodictic or authoritarian but were always accompanied by con- SOLMSEN, FRIEDRICH, Classical Scholarship in Berlin Between the Wars , Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 30:1 (1989) p.117 FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN 129 vincing arguments.Y He noticed a great deal about the colleague or (much more frequently) student who came to consult him. No change in temperament, enthusiasm, or (speaking more generally) physical and mental condition escaped him. He also sensed likes and dislikes between individuals in the Institut fur Altertumskunde without having received a hint about them. No less astonishing was his capacity to understand human prob­ lems and conditions, many of which one would consider quite foreign to his own experience. The understanding and the sym­ pathy that accompanied it proved comforting and often helped a person to shake off his discouragement. There were to be sure a number of students, some rather able on the technical side, with whom a relationship could not develop. Those with whom he felt in harmony were during the winter semester of 1923/4 asked to meet in his home every second Saturday evening from eight to eleven or eleven-thirty for an "intensive" study of the Nicomachean Ethics. Here the breadth of his knowledge and his firm grasp of philosophical and other intellectual problems had the greatest scope and operated freely in whatever direction his inspiration led him. He had told us to expect many digressions-in fact, more digressions than straight­ forward study and interpretation of the text. Actually digres­ sions covered subjects as varied as the concept of 'tEXVll (for Jae­ ger something very characteristically Greek), (P'¥OV and EVEP­ ,¥El