NIEBUHR, BARTHOLD GEORG German statesman and historian, son of Karsten Niebuhr (q.v.), was born at Copenhagen on Aug. 27, 1776. After studying at the university of Kiel, he became private secretary to Count Schimmelmann, Danish minister of finance, but in 1799 entered the state service. He was chief director of the National Bank from 1804 to 18o6 when he took a similar appointment in Prussia. He accompanied the Prussian government to Konigsberg, where he rendered con siderable service in the commissariat, and was afterwards still more useful as commissioner of the national debt and by his opposition to ill-considered schemes of taxation. In 1810 he was made royal historiographer and professor at Berlin university, and two years later published two volumes of his Romische Ge schiclite (Eng. trans., 1847-51). In 1816, while on his way to Rome to take up the post of ambassador, he discovered in the cathedral of Verona the long-lost Institutes of Gaius, afterwards edited by Savigny, to whom he communicated the discovery under the impression that he had found a portion of Ulpian. During, his residence in Rome Niebuhr discovered and published frag ments of Cicero and Livy, aided Cardinal Mai in his edition of Cicero De Republica, and shared in planning the great work on the topography of ancient Rome by von Bunsen and Platner (1773-1855), to which he contributed several chapters. In 1823 he resigned the embassy and established himself at Bonn, where he died on Jan. 2, 1831.
counts among epoch-making histories both as marking an era in the study of its special subject and for its momentous influence on the general conception of history. "The main results," says Leonhard Schmitz, "arrived at by the inquiries of Niebuhr, such as his views of the ancient population of Rome, the origin of the plebs, the relation between the patricians and plebeians. the real nature of the ager publicus, and many other points of interest. have been acknowledged by all his successors." He was the first to deal with the ancient history of Rome in a scientific spirit and introduced new principles into historical research. He suggested the theory of the myth; he brought in inference to supply the place of discredited tradition and showed the possibility of writ ing history in the absence of original records; he drew attention to the importance of ethnological distinctions, and laid stress on institutions, and social traits to the neglect of individuals.