Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren

With the sponsorship of Heyne, whose influence in Hannover was then at its height, and whose son-in-law he would later (1796) become, he was in June 1787 named to the faculty of the university itself as an außerordentlicher Professor of Philosophy.

At Göttingen, such established scholars as Johann Christoph Gatterer, August Ludwig von Schlözer and Spittler were still active as historians.

During this period Heeren undertook with his friend Thomas Christian Tychsen a “Library of Ancient Literature and Art,” which had a short-lived existence.

The reception given the first part was by not encouraging; the work of Thomas Gaisford and Augustus Meineke would eventually supplant the completed edition.

Gradually, therefore, place was made for Heeren as a historian, despite the fact that, at this point, he could scarcely claim to stand on an equal footing with such established senior scholars.

His new circumstances soon brought out his talent as a historian of classical antiquity, in which he would achieve both intellectual fulfillment and great scholarly eminence.

From his earlier lectures grew his magisterial Politics, Trade, and Commerce in the Ancient World, which would go through numerous later editions, with Heeren providing fundamental revisions as it continued to appear.

With good reason, it has been supposed that Heeren's Bremen background and his childhood memories of that thriving commercial city were responsible for his taking this particular direction.

But to explain the overwhelmingly favorable reception that greeted Politics, Trade, and Commerce in the Ancient World, one must also take into account Heeren's considerable talent as a writer, as well as an acute historical sense and a sharply critical spirit without which a work on such a subject could not have failed to be dull reading.

The effect of this reception on Heeren was lasting, no doubt explaining why, in his unpublished autobiographical writings, he would continue to lay particular stress on the importance of what he called the “politico-mercantile” dimension of history.

This refusal of political engagement, Franz Xaver von Wegele would write a generation later in the Allegemeinen Deutschen Biographie, was largely responsible for “the rapid fading of what had once been his shining star” (das rasche Verbleichen seines einst strahlenden Gestirnes).

Nonetheless, he would live to see his own reputation eclipsed by members of a rising generation, with his own colleagues among those who joined the attacks on certain of his own chief works.

Pertz and Friedrich August Ukert had initiated their ambitious project on the History of the European States, it was Heeren that they had eagerly besought as their main editor.

The above article is a translation of the original entry by Franz Xaver von Wegele in the Allegemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol.

With Friedrich August Ukert (1780–1851) he founded the famous historical collection, Geschichte der europäischen Staaten (Gotha, 1819 seq.