JOHANN WILHELM ADOLF

KIRCHHOFF (1826-1908)  , German classical scholar and epigraphist, was born in Berlin on the 6th of January 1826 . In 1865 he was appointed professor of classical philology in the university of his native city . He died on the 26th of February 1908 . He is the author of Die Homerische Odyssee (1859), putting forward an entirely new theory as to the composition of the Odyssey; editions of Plotinus (1856), Euripides (1855 and 1877-1878) . Aeschylus (188o), Hesiod (Works and Days, 1889), Xenophon, On the Athenian Constitution (3rd ed., 1889); Uber die Entstehungszeit des Herodotischen Geschichtswerkes (2nd ed., 1878); Thukydides and sein Urkundenmaterial (1895) . The following works are the result of his epigraphical and palaeographical studies: Die Umbrischen Sprachdenkmaler (1851); Das Stadtrecht von Bantia (1853), on the tablet discovered in 1790 at Oppido near Banzi, containing a plebiscite relating to the municipal affairs of the ancient Bantia; Das Gotische Runenalphabet (1852); Die Frankischen Runen (1855) ; Studien zur Geschichte des Griechischen Alphabets (4th ed., 1887) . The second part of vol. iv. of the Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum (1859, containing the Christian inscriptions) and vol. i. of the C . I . Atticarum (1873, containing the inscriptions before 403) with supplements thereto (vol. iv. pts . 1–3, 1877-1891) are edited by him .