Otto Seeck

Otto Karl Seeck was a German classical historian who is perhaps best known for his work on the decline of the ancient world. He was born in Riga.

Life and career

He first began studying chemistry at the Imperial University of Dorpat but transferred to the University of Berlin to study classical history under Theodor Mommsen. Seeck earned his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1872 after writing his thesis on the Notitia Dignitatum, a document enumerating the roles and responsibilities of administrative officials of the later Roman Empire c. 400 AD. He habilitated under Mommsen in Berlin in 1877 and, with the help of Mommsen, secured a post at the University of Greifswald in 1881, where he taught Roman History and Archaeology. There he met Karl Julius Beloch. In 1907 he went to the University of Münster where he continued teaching and writing.
Seeck wrote many influential works on late antiquity and social Darwinism. He was widely published in such academic journals as the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft, Hermes, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, and the Zeitschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Some of his monographs, including his influential 6-volume Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt —which set forth his beliefs concerning social Darwinism, later influencing Oswald Spengler—are still in print today.

Selected works

Quaestiones de notitia dignitatum. Dissertation, Berlin 1872
Notitia dignitatum. Accedunt notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae et laterculi provinciarum. Berlin 1876
Die Kalendertafel der Pontifices. Berlin 1885
Die Quellen der Odyssee. Berlin 1887
Die Briefe des Libanius zeitlich geordnet. Leipzig 1906
Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste für die Jahre 311 bis 476 n. Chr.: Vorarbeit zu einer Prosopographie der christlichen Kaiserzeit. Stuttgart 1919.
Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt. 6 Bände. Metzler, Stuttgart 1895–1920
Kaiser August. 1902