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( Barthold Georg Niebuhr)
Barthold Georg Niebuhr (August 27, 1776 – January 2, 1831) was a German statesman and historian. Son of Carsten Niebuhr, he was born in Copenhagen. From the earliest age young Niebuhr manifested extraordinary precocity, and from 1794 to 1796, being already a finished classical scholar and acquainted with several modern languages, he studied at the University of Kiel. After quitting the university he became private secretary to Count Schimmelmann, Danish finance minister. But in 1798 he gave up this appointment and travelled in Great Britain, spending a year at Edinburgh studying agriculture and physical science. In 1799 he returned to Denmark, where he entered the state service; in 1800 he married and settled at Copenhagen. In 1804 he became chief director of the National Bank, but in September 1806 quit this for a similar appointment in Prussia. He arrived in Prussia on the eve of the catastrophe of Jena. He accompanied the fugitive government to Königsberg, where he rendered considerable service in the commissariat, and was afterwards still more useful as commissioner of the national debt and by his opposition to ill-considered schemes of taxation. He was also for a short time Prussian minister in the Netherlands, where he endeavoured without success to contract a loan. The extreme sensitiveness of his temperament, however, disqualified him for politics; he proved impracticable in his relations with Hardenberg and other ministers, and in 1810 retired for a time from public life, accepting the more congenial appointment of royal historiographer and professor at the university of Berlin. He commenced his lectures with a course on the history of Rome, which formed the basis of his great work Römische Geschichte. The first two volumes, based upon his lectures, were published in 1812, but attracted little attention at the time owing to the absorbing interest of political events. In 1813 Niebuhr's own attention was diverted from history by the uprising of the German people against Napoleon; he entered the Landwehr and ineffectually sought admission into the regular army. He edited for a short time a patriotic journal, the Prussian Correspondent, joined the headquarters of the allied sovereigns, and witnessed the battle of Bautzen, and was subsequently employed in some minor negotiations. In 1815 he lost both his father and his wife.
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