Niebuhr, Barthold Georg

nee'boor, Barthold Georg (1776-1831), a celebrated German historian. He was born at Copenhagen. He studied at Kiel, London, and Edinburgh. His early manhood was spent in banking. He entered the employ of the Danish government and a few years later was made a director of the government bank. A quarrel with his superior led him to resign office and to leave Copenhagen for Germany. He taught history at Berlin. In 1813 he entered the employment of the Prussian government and took a prominent part in arousing sentiment against Napoleon. In 1823 he settled down as a professor of history at Bonn. His reputation rests on a history of Rome, which he carried down from the earliest times as far as the Punic Wars. It was an epoch-making book. The stories of Romulus and the wolf, the founding of Rome, the vestal virgins, etc., were declared fables. A rational history of the Romans was drawn from such authentic material as was then at hand. Mommsen, whose history of Rome was written at a later date, with fuller material and information at hand, was a pupil of Niebuhr and received his inspiration from him. See Mommsen