Rehabilitationen Roms: Die roemische Antike in der deutschen Kultur zwischen Winckelmann und Niebuhr

This dissertation uncovers the Roman discourse in late eighteenth century Germany by discussing the characterizations of ancient Rome in art history, historiography and literary theory. The last two decades of the eighteenth century experienced a renewed interest in Roman antiquity. This interest can be fathomed on a quantitative level -- e.g. in an increase in translations of Latin authors -- but it is also perceptible on a theoretical level.;The emphasis on the importance of the Greek ideal in German culture after Winckelmann has tended to obscure the continuous reception of, and reflection on Roman antiquity. The negative view of Roman antiquity, especially on the early Roman Empire as part of a critique of French classicism developed by the Storm-and-Stress movement, was not a common attitude in Germany. An analysis of a wider range of texts -- e.g. enlightenment children's books -- shows that there was a heterogeneity of positions toward Rome.;The last decades of the eighteenth century moreover demonstrated an interest in early Roman history and, after Edward Gibbon, in the later empire. Characterizations of a "Roman epoch" in world history came to be part of universal history, philosophies of history and literary history. Early Romanticism finally discovered the modernity of Roman antiquity in aesthetic and philosophical regard and postulated the continuing relevance of Rome while devaluing Greece. It thus paved the way for major contributions on Roman history and art history in the nineteenth century. The importance of Roman antiquity was now seen in its function as a culture of transformation.;The first part engages Winckelmann's history of art and argues that Winckelmann increasingly engaged with the Roman tradition in his later works and, despite his provocative negation of a Roman style, developed a notion of Roman art. It was, moreover, not common practice to adopt Winckelmann's view on Rome in the decades following his death. F.A. Wolf and Wilhelm von Humboldt, C.G. Heyne and Friedrich Schlegel developed different visions of Rome after Winckelmann, which are also presented in part one.;The second part deals with the historiographical discourse on Roman antiquity and especially with the ensuing popularization -- translation, adaptation and transformation -- of French and English historiography in Germany. It emphasizes the increasing importance of the Roman Empire in children's literature of the late Enlightenment.;The third part focuses on the early modern genre of Roman antiquities, or "Altertumer", and the ways in which it acquired a new relevance when enriched with autoptic elements that lead to a mixture of textually transmitted and observational knowledge.;The fourth part engages the discourse of literary history and aesthetics and argues that during the last years of the eighteenth century, the discovery of the modernity of Roman culture lead to a new perspective on Roman antiquity that was decisive also for the theoretical discourse on Rome during the nineteenth century.;The epilog sketches the reflections on the value of the study of Rome on a theoretical level in the historiography and cultural critique of Jacob Burckhardt and Friedrich Nietzsche.