Theodor Mommsen

One Nobel Prize in Literature I won't be complaining about is the one given to Theodor Mommsen (1817-1903) in 1902. The list of this guy's accomplishments is not merely impressive, it's frighteningly vast. In fact, I don't know if there has been a complete list of his accomplishments: there are so many of them, you're bound to miss a few.

The work for which he may be most widely-known, and the one singled out by the Swedish Academy, is his Römische Geschichte, his history of Rome, the first edition of which was published in 1854 and 1855, when Mommsen was in his late 30's. Before that, he had been a journalist for a short while, and a law professor at the University of Leipzig, a position from which he was fired in 1850 because of his involvement in the revolution of 1848-49. He held other academic positions after that, most notably the chair of Ancient History at the University of Berlin, to which he was appointed in 1858.

Mommsen kept revising and expanding the Römische Geschichte, with the 9th edition appearing in 1902, the year he turned 85 and received the Nobel Prize. A 1998 paperback edition from dtv based on the 9th edition has over 2750 pages in 8 volumes.

According to his bio on the Nobel Prize website, Mommsen felt contempt for Cicero. If this is true, it makes me so happy. I was beginning to think I was the only one who had ever felt contempt for Cicero. The Nobel page sez:

"His contempt for the senatorial oligarchy and the «weakling» Cicero, as well as his boundless admiration for the energy and statesmanship of Julius Caesar, for a long time dominated the standard view of the history of that era."

That dominated the standard view for a long time? and this is the first time I'm hearing about someone else who just can't stand Cicero? Hm. Someone's gotten something wrong here. Might be me.

Onward. The Römische Geschichte was just one of Mommsen's accomplishments. He made an edition of the Corpus Juris Civilis or Justinian Code, the summary of ancient Roman law made in the 6th century under the Emperor Justinian, an edition which is still widely used by lawyers and scholars of things legal today. In addition, he wrote many books and articles on Roman law, and was considered the leading authority of his time on the subject.

He edited and made great contributions to the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, a catalog of ancient Roman inscriptions. An inscription is writing on a hard surface, such as stone, metal or wood, as opposed to writing on a soft surface such as paper or parchment. In the case of ancient Rome, many of the inscriptions are words carved into stone. The first volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, often referred to as the CIL, appeared in 1853, the year Mommsen turned 36, and the year before the first part of the first edition of his Römische Geschichte appeared. The CIL is still being updated, and currently contains about 180,000 items.

Technically, words which appear on coins are inscriptions; however, the CIL does not include Roman coins; however, Mommsen wrote extensively about Roman coins and was considered the leading authority of his time on the subject.

In addition, from 1875-1903 Mommsen was one of the directors of the MGH, the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, a vast series of publications of Medieval German writing in all genres: histories, chronicles, letters, theologies, charters, laws, etc, etc, which defines both "Medieval" and "German" very broadly. In the MGH, Mommsen was the director and one of the leading editors of the Auctores Antiquissimi division, which is devoted to Late ancient and Early Medieval authors. (That's right: is, not was, because, like the CIL, the MGH is still publishing new editions today.)

Mommsen edited many Latin works in addition to those in the MGH, and was considered one of the greateast classical scholars of his time.

In addition, Mommsen was a member of the Prussian Parliament, first with the National Liberal party, and the with the Liberal party, or "Secession," which broke away from the National Liberals.

And, like everyone else who's attempted to summarize Mommsen's achievements in a couple of pages, I've probably left some major items out.

Dream Log: A Dime And Nicole Kidman

I had two dreams last night, one about finding an interesting coin, and the other about meeting Nicole Kidman.

The interesting coin was a dime, and I found it on the sidewalk. I was in San Francisco during something called the San Francisco Expedition. (I googled and I couldn't find anything in real life called the San Francisco Expedition.) The Expedition was an annual event where people gathered to discuss the city's history, and other things.

At first the dime appeared to be fairly new, so I was surprised when I saw that its date was 1948. Also, just inside the edge on its reverse (the tails side of a coin is also sometimes called its reverse), there were two gold-colored near-semicircles, one on top and one below, nearly meeting on the left and right, forming a near-circle. Just inside this gold circle in the upper-left quarter of the reverse were raised in relief the words "SAN FRANCISCO EXPEDITION." I think the rest of the relief looked more or less like the relief of a regular FDR dime, maybe made a bit smaller to make room for the gold near-cirle and the extra words, but I don't really remember for sure.

I looked the dime up in a Red Book,

and saw the 1948 San Francisco Expedition dime listed as just slightly more valuable than a regular 1948 dime in uncirculated condition. Google Shopping shows 3 1948 uncirculated dimes for sale, priced $12.50 to $37.50. And no 1948 San Francisco Expedition dimes because they only exist in this dream.

As I was looking in the Red Book, a man said that a friend of his had lost the dime. I gave him the dime and he headed toward his friend, and I followed. The man regarded me suspiciously. He asked me if I expected some kind of award from his friend, or if I might even try to charm his friend into giving me the coin outright.

I pointed out that I had just met him a moment before, and immediately gave him the coin when he said his friend had lost it. I said I didn't know if he was telling the truth about having a friend who lost the coin, but was giving him the benefit of the doubt. I said that the only thing I knew for sure about him was that he was insulting me, assuming right away that I was some kind of crook.

We got to his friend, who was in from out of town for the Expedition, and had a large amount of Expedition-related things: posters from previous Expeditions, various items with "San Francisco Expedition" written or painted or stamped upon them. This collector thanked me profusely for finding his lost dime, and immediately offered to give it to me. I said that I didn't want to take it. "I don't want to break up your collection," I said.

Then the collector's friend and I went out of the collector's earshot and he mumbled something about how he was sorry he'd assumed right away that I might be a crook, and I mumbled something about how I could understand him being very protective of a friend who was so generous toward complete strangers, some of whom, no doubt, actually were crooks, and we shook hands and slapped each other on the shoulder in a very manly way as we mumbled.

Then I was away from those 2 guys, and on a sidewalk, half-straddling a red 12-speed road racing bike I owned in the 1980's. Nicole Kidman walked by and made some remark about the bike. In the dream in appeared that she knew an awful lot about bicycles. I said I had owned the bike since it was new over 30 years ago. (In real life I crashed it and totalled it when it was a couple of years old.) Ms Kidman looked at me and said something to the effect that, yeah, I looked old enough to have owned the bike for 30 years. That hurt my feelings, but I reminded myself that I actually do look like I'm in my 50's, which I am, and that there was no reason to assume that Nicole Kidman was trying to be mean. On the contrary, she was very nice. It was just quite clear that she didn't find me attractive, and that it didn't occur to her that that might hurt my feelings. (This was much more realistic than a bunch of other recent dreams I've had in which movie stars have found me irresistable.)

Anyway, pretty soon she had to go -- understandable, since she was Nicole Kidman and most likely had a busy schedule, and had not fallen hopelessly in love with me -- and she said, "Well, I guess you want to take a selfie with me." That was understandable, too: most strangers who meet Nicole Kidman probably want to take selfies with her. Like I said, she was being very nice.

I, too, was trying to be very nice and to make it clear that I appreciated that she was being very nice, but that, unlike most people, I really didn't care about selfies, or autographs, or any of those celebrity-related things.

I really don't. I know which famous people and other bigshots I've met, and I don't need to keep physical evidence of it to impress others. I just don't feel the need, one, and two, I know that the famous people get way too many requests for those things as it is without me piling on. I have never in my life asked for an autograph or a selfie next to a famous person.

That's not true: I've done it once in my life. One time, when I was much younger and more susceptible to peer pressure, I was at a reading by a poet in a bookstore in Germany, and since everybody else bought the poet's latest paperback and waited in line for him to sign it, so did I. The experience made me very uncomfortable. Well, here's to growing out of the susceptibility to peer pressure!

Anyway, before we got to the point where I was about to take a selfie purely for Nicole Kidman's sake rather than keep on trying to explain that I didn't need one, although I really thought she was being very nice -- I woke up.