Friedrich Münzer

Friedrich Münzer (22 April 1868 – 20 October 1942) was a German classical scholar noted for the development of prosopography, particularly for his demonstrations of how family relationships in ancient Rome connected to political struggles.

He was born at Oppeln, Silesia (now Opole, Poland), into a Jewish merchant family, went to Leipzig University and then in 1887 to Berlin University, where he wrote his thesis De Gente Valeria under the supervision of Otto Hirschfeld. In 1893 he traveled to Rome, where Georg Wissowa recruited him to write biographical articles for the Pauly-Wissowa encyclopedia. From there he went to Athens and participated in excavations on the Acropolis. He also met Clara Engels there; they were married two years later, on 4 September 1897.

Meanwhile, Münzer had been appointed as an unsalaried lecturer at Basel University in 1896; he and Clara were supported by their parents and his article-writing. (When applying for the job, he reported himself as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; three years earlier his CV had said he was of Jewish faith.) He was promoted to the second chair in classical philology in 1902. In 1912 he accepted a post at Königsberg, which made him an official in the German civil service.

Clara died in the influenza pandemic on 15 December 1918; and in 1921, the widower took up a post at the University of Münster. His greatest work, Römische Adelsparteien und Adelsfamilien (Roman noble parties and noble families") had appeared in 1920 and brought him fame for the first time.

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