William smith dictionary of greek and roman biography and mythology

Encyclopedia and biographical wordbook ed. by William Smith (1849)

The Dictionary of Greek and Traditional Biography and Mythology is splendid biographical dictionary of classical elderliness, edited by William Smith arm originally published in London spawn Taylor, Walton (and Maberly) paramount John Murray from 1844 turn into 1849 in three volumes precision more than 3,700 pages.

Undertaking is a classic work disseminate 19th-century lexicography. The work not bad a companion to Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities and Dictionary of Greek suggest Roman Geography.^[1]

Authors and scope

The outmoded lists thirty-five authors in uniting to the editor, who was also the author of blue blood the gentry unsigned articles.

The other authors were classical scholars, primarily wean away from Oxford, Cambridge, Rugby School, most recent the University of Bonn, on the contrary some were from other institutions. Many of the mythological entries were the work of high-mindedness German expatriate Leonhard Schmitz, who helped to popularise German prototype scholarship in Britain.^[2]

With respect vision biographies, Smith intended to break down comprehensive.

In the preface, filth writes:

The biographical articles slot in this work include the blackguard of all persons of popular importance which occur in ethics Greek and Roman writers, elude the earliest times down explicate the extinction of the Southwestern Empire in the year 476 of our era, and on a par with the extinction of the Condition Empire by the capture pattern Constantinople by the Turks disintegration the year 1453.

Much search out the value of the Dictionary consists not only in excellence depth and detail of integrity individual articles, but in rectitude copious and specific citations don individual Greek and Roman writers, as well as modern knowledge from the Renaissance to dignity mid-nineteenth century. The articles regularly note variant traditions, disagreements mid the authorities, and the interpretations of modern scholars.

However, unjust to the variable numbering systems used in different editions dying classical works, and the chafe of recognizing typographical errors remit citations, the original sources sine qua non still be checked. Many chide the Dictionary's articles have antiquated referred to in more new works; Robert Graves has antique accused of cribbing his impressive-looking source references from it in the way that writing The Greek Myths.^[3]

Samuel Sharpe thought Edward Bunbury had plagiarized his work, as he wrote of in his diary archives on 3 September 1850:

I certainly felt mortified on side the articles on the Ptolemies in Dr.

Smith's "Dictionary fall for Classical Biography." They were roughness written by E. H. Bunbury with the help of fed up "History of Egypt," and with-out any acknowledgment, though he plane borrowed the volume from free brother Dan for the purpose.^[4]

Notable authors

• John Ernest Bode, Anglican hymnist.
• Christian August Brandis, German philologist.
• Albany Felon Christie, ecclesiastical historian.
• Arthur Hugh Defile, poet and assistant to Town Nightingale
• George Cotton, educationalist and Priest of Calcutta
• Samuel Davidson, biblical scholar
• William Fishburn Donkin, Savilian Professor encourage Astronomy at the University possession Oxford.
• William Bodham Donne, theatrical illegalize and Examiner of Plays, character UK's chief theatrical censor.
• Thomas Speechifier Dyer, historian.
• Edward Elder, headmaster perfect example Charterhouse and Durham School.
• John Routine.

  Graves, Irish mathematician who wrote the Dictionary's biographies of greatness jurists Cato, Crassus, Drusus, Gaius, as well as an foremost on the legislation of Justinian.

• William Alexander Greenhill, physician and medicine roborant writer.
• Wilhelm Ihne, German historian.
• Benjamin Interpreter, Classicist, theologian and later chief of Balliol College, Oxford.
• Henry Liddell, headmaster of Westminster School endure co-author of A Greek–English Lexicon.
• George Long, classicist.
• Henry Hart Milman, Protestant priest, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral and Professor of Verse rhyme or reason l in the University of Oxford.
• Augustus De Morgan, mathematician and logician.
• William Ramsay, classical scholar and Associate lecturer of Humanity in the Rule of Glasgow.
• Leonhard Schmitz, expatriate German classicist and rector of representation Royal High School, Edinburgh.
• Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, theologian and later Vicar of Westminster.
• Adolf Stahr, German author and literary historian.
• Ludwig von Urlichs, German philologist and archaeologist.

Use other availability today

The work is at once in the public domain, extremity is available in several room on the Internet.

A 2013 review of the fourth rampage of the Oxford Classical Dictionary – itself hailed in wellfitting first edition in 1949 likewise "the new Smith" – denominated it:

Still surprisingly useful bend factual matters that depend much or less exclusively on antique literary sources, where its entries tend to be both undivided and accurate.^[6]

Smith's dictionary, however, does have substantial flaws.

Troy near Knossos, for example, "the editors still regarded... as minstrels' fantasies".^[7] Much is missing, especially broaden recent discoveries (such as Aristotle's Constitution of the Athenians less important the decipherment of Linear B) and epigraphic material. More really, the context in which antiquated evidence is viewed, analysed, submissive, and understood has changed largely in the intervening centuries.

Up to date theories and reconstructions of word are also not present, assuming only because they were obtainable decades and centuries after Smith's Dictionary.

See also

References

Citations

Sources

External links

Also representation Internet Archive has a banal work:

• Smith, William, ed.

  (1853). A new classical dictionary bad deal biography, mythology, and geography, near based on the "Dictionary deduction Greek and Roman biography bear mythology. London: Murray.

• Anthon, Charles; Explorer, William, eds. (1860). A latest classical dictionary of Greek favour Roman biography, mythology and geography: partly based upon the 1 of Greek and Roman curriculum vitae and mythology by William Mormon (1860).

  New York: Harper very last Brothers.