=MOEN, TirEonon, a distinguished writer on the history and polity of ancient Rome, was b. in 1817 at Garding, in Sleswick, where his father was a pastor in the Lutheran church. Mommsen studied first at Altona, and subsequently at the university of Kiel, where he graduated in arts in 1843. Having obtained some assistance from the academy of Berlin to defray the expenses of a prolonged course of travois, Mommsen spent three years -in investigating Roman inscriptions in France and Italy, and from time to tune published the result of his investigations in the annals of the archaeological institute of Rome and the Herculanean academy of Naples. The political disturbances of 1848 diverted Mommsen from his favorite pursuits; and for a time he devoted him self to politics, taking upon himself the editorship of the leading Sleswick-Holstein paper, for which lie wrote the leading articles in the summer or 1848. Mommsen held for a short time a chair in the university of Lcipsic, but his appointment was canceled on account of his strong political tendencies. He was made titular professor of law at Zurich in 1852, and at Breslau in 1854; while, since 1858, he has filled the chair of Roman law at Berlin. His attention has long been devoted to those branches of archae
ology and ancient history with winch his name is now so honorably associated. Among his most valmible contributions to these departments of knowledge, special mention must be made of the following: Die Unteritalischen Dialekte (Leip. 1850); Comm inscrip tionum Neapolitanarwn (Leip 1851); his mongraphs on The Chronography of the Year 354; and Roman Coins (Ldp. 1850); the edict of Diocletian, De Pretiis Rerun Venalium A. 301 (Leip. 18.51): Inscriptiones Regal Latina'., 1852; Die Rechtsfrage Zwimhen Co3sar smart d. Senat, 1857; his great work on Roman history, BMA. Geschichte, fifth edition, 1868-70 (ably translated into English by W. P. Dickson); Romische Forsehungen articles on special points of Roman antiquities (1st vol. Berlin, 1864); Romisches Slants ?edit (1st. vol. Leip. 1871); Die Erzahlung ton Caius Ifartius Coriolanus; and his .Digcsta Justiniani Augusti (Berlin, 1868-70).