The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Ribbeck, Johann Karl Otto

RIBBECK, Johann Karl Otto, German philologist: b. at Erfurt, 23 July 1827; d. 1898. In early life he went to Berlin, where he studied under Lachmann, Bopp and Böckh, and from there to Bonn where he was a close student of the methods of Welcker and Ritschl. Having received his degree in Berlin and traveled for a year through Italy, in 1853, he returned to Berlin, where he entered Böckh's school. He then became a teacher, being called successively to Elberfeld, Bern, Kiel, Heidelberg, and finally, in 1877, to Leipzig, there becoming the successor of his former master, Ritschl. Ribbeck's works are mostly confined to criticisms of Latin poetry and to classical character sketches and display a profound knowledge of the classics combined with a brilliant style of essay. Among them are ‘Vergelii Opera,’ with prolegomena and critical notes (5 vols., 1859-69); ‘Tragicorum Latinorum reliquiæ’ (1862); ‘Cornicorum Latinorum reliquiæ’ (1855); ‘Der echte und unechte Juvenal’ (1865); ‘Horace's Epistles’ (1869); ‘Zur Lehre von den Latein Partiketln’ (1860); ‘Die römische Tragodie im Zeitalter der Republick’ (1875); Plautus's ‘Miles Gloriosus’ (1881); the biography of Friedrich Ritschl (2 vols., 1879-81); ‘Geschichte der römischen Dichtung’ (3 vols., 1889-92; 2d ed., 1897-1900); and the classical character sketches (which appeared in the Rheinische Museum, of which he became editor in 1876) ‘Alazon’ (1882), ‘Kolax’ (1885) and ‘Agrockos’ (1885).