Hermann Diels

Hermann Alexander Diels (; 18 May 1848 – 4 June 1922) was a German classical scholar, who was influential in the area of early Greek philosophy and is known for his standard work Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Diels helped to import the term Presocratic into classical scholarship and developed the Diels–Kranz numbering system for ancient Greek Pre-Socratic texts. Biography Hermann Alexander Diels was born to Ludwig A Diels, a railroad stationmaster and Anna D. Diels in Wiesbaden-Biebrich, Hesse on May 18, 1848, and attended a Gymnasium in Wiesbaden (1858-67) before pursuing studies in higher education. He was educated at the universities of Bonn and Berlin but did not have enough money to complete a habilitation. As a result, Diles became a teacher at a Gymnasium in Flensburg, the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums in Hamburg and the Konigstadtische Realschule in Berlin. In 1882, Diels joined the faculty of the Humboldt University of Berlin and in 1886 became professor ordinarius of classical philology at the same institution. During this time, Diels was a close colleague of Eduard Zeller. Diels became a member of the Berlin Academy in 1881, the British Academy in 1907, a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1907, and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1909. He was the co-founder of Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie in 1888 and edited Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca at the Prussian Academy of Sciences from 1877 to 1909.