Johann Gottfried Schweighauser

Johann Gottfried Schweighauser (1776–1844), son of the classicist Johann Schweighauser was also a distinguished scholar and archaeologist, joint-author with M. Golbéry of "Antiquités de l'Alsace" (1828).

Schweighauser's first important work was his edition of Appian (1785), with Latin translation and commentary, and an account of the manuscripts. On Brunck's recommendation, he had collated an Augsburg manuscript of Appian for Samuel Musgrave, who was preparing an edition of that author, and after Musgrave's death he felt it a duty to complete it. His Polybius, with translation, notes and special lexicon, appeared in 1789-1795.

But his chief work is his edition of Athenaeus (1801-1807), in fourteen volumes, one of the Bipont editions. His Herodotus (1816; lexicon, 1824) is less successful; he depends too much on earlier editions and inferior manuscripts, and lacks the finer scholarship necessary in dealing with such an author. Mention may also be made of his "Encheiridion" of Epictetus and "Tabula" of Cebes (1798), which appeared at the time when the doctrines of the Stoics were fashionable; the letters of Seneca to Lucilius (1809); corrections and notes to Suidas (1789); some moral philosophy essays. His minor works are collected in his "Opuscula academica" (1806).

See monographs by J. G. Dahler, C. L. Cuvier, F. J. Stiévenart (all 1830), L. Spach (1868), Ch. Rabany (1884), the two last containing an account of both father and son.

References

*1911