CREUZER, GEORG FRIEDRICH (1771-1858), German philologist and archaeologist, was born on March io, 1771 at Marburg, the son of a bookbinder. He was professor of philology and ancient history at Heidelberg for nearly 45 years, with the exception of a short time spent at the University of Leyden. He died on Feb. 16, 1858. Creuzer's first and most famous work was his Symbolik and Mythologie der alten Volker, besonders der Griechen (1810-12), in which he maintained that the mythology of Homer and Hesiod came from an Eastern source through the Pelasgians, and was the remains of an ancient revelation.
See the autobiographical Aus dem Leben eines alten Professors (Leipzig and Darmstadt, 1848), to which was added in the year of his death Paralipomena der Lebenskizze eines alter Professors (Frankfort, J858) ; Starck, Friederich Kreuzer, sein Bildungsgang rind seine blei bende Bedeutung (Heidelberg, 1875) ; Rohde, Friedrich Creuzer and Karoline von Gunderode, Brie f e and Dichtungen 1896.