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Johann Georg Baiter

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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JOHANN GEORG BAITER (1801-1877), Swiss philologist and textual critic, was born at Zurich on the 31st of May 1801. Having received his early education in his native place, he went (1818) to the university of Tubingen, but from want of funds was obliged to return to Zurich, where for several years he was a private tutor. From 1824 to 182 9 he studied at Munich under Friedrich Thiersch; at Gottingen, under Georg Dissen; at Konigsberg, under Christian Lobeck. From 1833 to 1876 he was Oberlehrer at the gymnasium in Zurich, where he died on the 10th of October 1877. Baiter's strong point was textual criticism, applied chiefly to Cicero and the Attic orators; he was very successful in hunting up the best MS. authorities, and his collations were made with the greatest accuracy. Most of his works were produced in collaboration with other scholars, such as Orelli, who regarded him as his right-hand man. He edited Isocrates, Panegyricus (1831); with Sauppe, Lycurgus, Leocratea (1834) and Oratores Attici (1838-1850); with Orelli and Winckelmann, a critical edition of Plato (1839-1842), which marked a distinct advance in the text, two new MSS. being laid under contribution; with Orelli, Babrius, Fabellae Iamoicae nuper repertae (1845); Isocrates, in the Didot collection of classics (1846). He had for some time been associated with Orelli in his great work on Cicero, and assisted in Ciceronis Scholiastae (1833) and Onomasticon Tullianum (1836-1838). For the FastiConsulares and Triumphales he was alone responsible. With Orelli and (after his death) Halm, he assisted in the second edition of the Cicero, and, with Kayser, edited the same author for the Tauchnitz series (1860-1869). New editions of Orelli's Tacitus and Horace were also due to him. It is worth noting that, with Sauppe, he translated Leake's Topography of Athens.