The German Genius

approach reverberated throughout German society and on the world stage. But though they, and others such as Johann Gustav Droysen and Dahlmann, together formed a clearly identifiable tendency, it wasn’t the only one. Other German historians of the period emphasized cultural history. We met Jacob Burckhardt (an important influence on Nietzsche, whom he knew in Basel) in Chapter 3. Ernst Curtius, Heinrich Schliemann, and Wilhelm Dörpfeld among them established the late nineteenth/early twentieth century pre-eminence of German classical archaeology.
    In the middle of the nineteenth century, Greece, a newly independent kingdom, had first a German king, Otto, then a Danish one, George I, though of course Denmark had long been part of the German cultural umbrella. Many Germans lived in Athens and one of them, Ludwig Ross, was charged with restoring the Parthenon.
    More important in the long run were the discoveries made by Ernst Curtius at Olympia. 23 This city meant a great deal to all Greeks—ancient chronology was related to the Olympic festivals that, it was known, had been held every four years since 776 B.C . There had been several attempts to mount an excavation, but nothing came to pass until 1874. While Curtius was in Athens as an envoy of Kaiser Wilhelm I, he helped to establish the new German Archaeological Institute, which held biweekly meetings (the first on December 9, Winckelmann’s birthday). 24 And it was Curtius, professor of archaeology at Berlin, who, together with the German ambassador, persuaded the Greek foreign minister and Ross’s Greek successor as keeper of antiquities to sign the Olympia Agreement. This became a prototype for all such agreements from then on and stipulated that the Germans would pay all expenses, including those of the Greek police nominated to oversee the excavations, that the Germans should have the choice of where to dig, provided landowners were compensated, and that all finds should remain in Greece, though the Greek government could, at its discretion, give away any duplicates that it saw fit. Germany had the right to make copies and casts, and all publications were to be simultaneously released in Greek and German. 25
    In just over two months the temple of Zeus was exposed, followed by the Winged Victory, 42 heroic bodies, and more than 400 inscriptions. For many, however, it was the discovery of the Hermes that attracted most acclaim. This, according to Pausanias, was once taken for a work by Praxiteles ( fl. 364 B.C. ), one of the most famous sculptors in ancient Greece. The excavations at Olympia were the first to be carried out on modern scientific principles, and they made the Germans the leaders in showing the world what the archaic style (highlighted long ago by Winckelmann) was really like. Everything from the sanctuaries of Hera and the hill of Cronos to the temple of Zeus, with its rows of statue bases dedicated to famous victors, even the workshop of Phidias (now a ruined church), was beautifully laid out. It was so well done that Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin, was moved to establish the modern Olympic Games in 1896.
    In the same year that Curtius began work at Olympia, another German was at work elsewhere in Greece, embarked on a project that, if anything, caught the eye even more than Olympia. Curtius, the professional archaeologist, was continually upstaged by a man who, he thought, often did more harm than good. This other man was Heinrich Schliemann and the place he was excavating was, as he thought, Troy.
    Schliemann had a colorful life, although—it is almost certainly true to say—not quite as colorful as he would like us to believe. 26 For Schliemann, while undoubtedly romantic, was a proven liar, and maybe a liar on an epic scale. Born in 1822 in Neu-Bukow in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, he was yet another son of a pastor. He had a whole career, a whole life, before he took up archaeology—as a grocer’s apprentice, a cabin boy, an agent in an import/export firm in St. Petersburg, where he prospered and learned Russian and Greek. He started a bank in Sacramento, California, making a fortune in six months by buying and reselling gold dust, returning to Russia, where he met his first wife, Ekaterina. She thought Heinrich was richer than he was, and when she discovered her mistake, she withheld conjugal rights. This had the desired effect, and he cornered the market in indigo, to such effect that Ekaterina bore him three children. In the Crimean