Karl Felix Halm

Karl Felix Halm (April 5, 1809 - October 5, 1882), German classical scholar and critic, was born at Munich.

In 1849, after having held appointments at Spires (Speyer) and Hadamar, he became rector of the newly founded Maximiliansgymnasium at Munich, and in 1856 director of the royal library and professor in the university. These posts he held till his death.

It is chiefly as the editor of Cicero and other Latin prose authors that Halm is known, although in early years he also devoted considerable attention to Greek. After the death of JC Orelli, he joined JG Baiter in the preparation of a revised critical edition of the rhetorical and philosophical writings of Cicero (1854-1862). His school editions of some of the speeches of Cicero in the Haupt and Sauppe series, with notes and introductions, were very successful. He also edited a number of classical texts for the Teubner series, the most important of which are Tacitus (4th ed., 1883); Rhetores Latini minores (1863); Quintilian (1868); Sulpicius Severus (1866); Minucius Felix together with Firmicus Maternus De errore (1867); Salvianus (1877) and Victor Vitensis's Historia persecutionis Africanae provinciae (1878). He was also an enthusiastic collector of autographs.

See articles by W Christ and G Laubmann in Allgemeine deutsche Biographie and by C Bursian in Biographisches Jahrbuch; and JE Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship, iii. 195 (1908).

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.