The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Müller, Karl Otfried

MÜLLER. I. Karl Otfried, a German archæologist, born in Brieg, Silesia, Aug. 28, 1797, died in Athens, Greece, Aug. 1, 1840. He was educated at the gymnasium of Brieg, the university of Breslau, and that of Berlin, where he graduated in 1817, and published in the same year his Ægineticorum Liber. On leaving Berlin he was appointed instructor in ancient languages in the Magdalenum of Breslau, where he employed much time in mythological studies and in the analysis of the different mythical cycles, the results of which are embodied in his Geschichte hellenischer Stämme und Städte, of which vol. i., Orchomenos und die Minyer, appeared at Breslau in 1820. At the recommendation of Böckh he was appointed in 1819 to a professorship at Göttingen, the duties of which included a series of lectures on archaeology and ancient art; and to prepare himself he visited France, England, and various parts of Germany. His Die Dorier (2 vols. 8vo., Breslan, 1824), forming vols. ii. and iii. of the Geschichte hellenischer Stämme und Städte, was intended to show the connection of manners, religion, politics, and history in one of the Greek races. An English translation by H. Tuffnell and Sir George Cornewall Lewis was published at Oxford in 1830, with additions and corrections by the author, and a new German edition of the whole work was published at Breslau (3 vols., 1844). Of his remaining works, the most important are the Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie (Göttingen, 1825; English translation by J. Leitch, London, 1844); Ueber die Wohnsitze, die Abstammung und die ältere Geschichte des makedonischen Volkes (Berlin, 1825); Die Etrusker (Breslau, 1828); and Handbuch der Archäologie der Kunst (translated by Leitch, London, 1850). He also undertook for the society for the diffusion of useful knowledge a history of Greek literature, the first volume of which was translated into English by Lewis and Donaldson (1840), previous to its publication in Germany, where it was issued after Müller's death by his brother Eduard (Geschichte der griechischen Literatur bis auf das Zeitalter Alexanders, 2 vols., Breslau, 1841; 2d ed., 1857), and was brought down by Donaldson in English to the capture of Constantinople (3 vols., London, 1858). He published also several special archæological treatises and articles in periodicals, and edited Festus, Varro's De Lingua Latina, and the Eumenides of Æschylus. In 1839 he undertook a tour of exploration in southern Italy and Greece, and while superintending excavations at Delphi contracted a fatal fever. He was removed before his death to Athens, and buried on an eminence near the site of Plato's academy. A collection of his Kleine deutsche Schriften was published posthumously by his brother Eduard (3 vols., Breslau, 1847-'8). — See Erinnerungen an Otfried Müller, by Lücke (Göttingen, 1841). II. Julius, a German theologian, brother of the preceding, born in Brieg, April 10, 1801. He abandoned the study of law for that of theology, and was settled over several small parishes from 1825 to 1831. He was then appointed preacher at the university of Göttingen, and in 1834 professor of theology. From 1835 to 1839 he filled the same chair at Marburg, and afterward at Halle. He has published various theological works and essays, and his Die christliche Lehre von der Sünde (Breslau, 1839; 4th revised ed., 2 vols., 1858; English translation by W. Pulsford, “The Christian Doctrine of Sin,” 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1852-'3) is one of the most noted productions of contemporary German Protestant literature. In 1850 he was associated with Neander and Nitzsch in founding the Deutsche Zeitschrift für christliche Wissenschaft und christliches Leben. Having been a representative of evangelical union in the Berlin synod of 1846, he published in 1854 Die evangelische Union, ihr Wesen und göttliches Recht. III. Eduard, brother of the preceding, born in Brieg, Nov. 12, 1804. Since 1853 he has been director of the gymnasium of Liegnitz, and has published Geschichte der Theorie der Kunst bei den Alten (2 vols., Breslau, 1834-'7), and a tragedy, Simson und Delilah (1853).