Otto Ribbeck

[2] Having held professorial appointments at Kiel and Heidelberg, he succeeded Ritschl in the chair of classical philology at Leipzig, where he died.

[1] Ribbeck was the author of several standard works on the poets and poetry of Rome, the most important of which are the following: Geschichte der römischen Dichtung ("History of Roman poetry," 2nd ed., 1894–1900); Die römische Tragodie im Zeitalter der Republik ("Roman tragedy during the time of the republic," 1875); Scaenicae Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta, including the tragic and comic fragments (3rd ed., 1897).

[1] As a textual critic he was distinguished by considerable rashness, and never hesitated to alter, rearrange or reject as spurious what failed to reach his standard of excellence.

The influence of Ritschl may be seen in Ribbeck's critical edition of the Miles gloriosus of Plautus, and in his Beiträge zur Lehre von den lateinischen Partikeln ("Contributions to the teachings on Latin particles"), a work of much promise, which causes regret that he did not publish further results of his studies in that direction.

He took great interest in the monumental Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, and it was chiefly owing to his efforts that the government of Saxony was induced to assist its production by a considerable subsidy.