Ernesti

(1) Johann August. A distinguished philologist and theologian of the last century, born at Tennstädt, in Germany, August 4th, 1707. He studied at Pforta, Wittenberg, and Leipzig, and in 1731 became co-rector with Gesner of the Thomas School in Leipzig, succeeding Gesner as rector in 1734. In 1742 he was called to the University of Leipzig as Professor Extraordinarius of Classical Literature, and became Professor Ordinarius of Rhetoric in 1756. He died September 11th, 1781.

Ernesti and his colleague Gesner (q.v.) are regarded as the founders of the modern German school of ancient literature. By their breadth of view, sound discipline, and contagious enthusiasm, they stimulated their pupils to those labours that resulted in transferring to Germany the supremacy in letters long held by the universities of Holland.

Ernesti's principal works (besides a multitude of pamphlets, programmata, etc.) are the following: Initia Doctrinae Solidioris (1736); Initia Rhetorica (1730); editions of Xenophon's Memorabilia (1737); Suetonius (1748); Tacitus (1752); the Clouds of Aristophanes (1754); Homer (1759-64); Callimachus (1761); Polybius (1764); of the Quaestura of Corradus; the Greek lexicon of Hedericus; the Bibliotheca Latina of Fabricius (unfinished); also Archaeologia Litteraria (1768); and Horatius Tursellinus de Particulis (1769). His best work, however, is the edition of Cicero, in 5 vols. (1737-39), to which is added the valuable Clavis Ciceroniana (6th ed. Halle, 1831). His Latin orations, which won for him the name of “the German Cicero,” are collected under the title Opuscula Oratoria (2d ed. 1767; suppl. vol. 1791). His philological treatises were published as Opuscula Philologica et Critica (1764; 2d ed. 1776). See Bursian, Geschichte d. Class. Philol. pp. 400-404 (Munich, 1883).

(2) Johann Christian Gottlieb, a nephew of the preceding, was born at Arnstadt in 1756; and studied at Leyden, where he became Professor of Philosophy in 1782, and of Rhetoric in 1802. He died in the last-named year (June 5th). He edited the fables of Aesop in Greek (1781); Hesychius (1785); Suidas (1786); the Punica of Sil. Italicus (1791-92); and also put forth a Lexicon Technologiae Graecorum Rhetoricae (1795); a Lexicon Technologiae Romanorum Rhetoricae (1797); and Cicero's Geist and Kunst (1799- 1802).