SEECK, OTTO. - Protestant historian, born in Riga on 2 Feb 1850, died in Münster on 29 July 1921.
He first studied chemistry, then from 1867 to 1869 history at the University of Dorpat. He then went to Berlin, graduating under Th. Mommsen in 1872. He became Privatdozent in 1877, extraordinary professor in 1881, and full professor of ancient history at the University of Greifswald in 1885, from where he moved in 1907 to the University of Münster. He published the Notitia dignitatum in 1876 and was a collaborator of the Monumenta Germaniae historica (he edited Symmachus in 1883), he dealt with the sources of the Odyssey (Quellen der Odyssee, 1887) and various topics in ancient history (Kalender tafel der Pontifices, 1885; Entwicklung der antiken Geschichtschreibung, 1898; Kaiser Augustus, 1902; Die Briefe des Libanius zeitlich geordnet, 1920).
Particular mention should be made of his Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste für die Jahre 311-476 (1918-19) and his History of the Decline of the Ancient World (Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt, 6 vols., 1895-1920), a Darwinian interpretation of the events of the Roman Empire, seeking to find the cause of the Empire's fall solely in the progressive degeneration of the "races." Seck completely overlooked the importance assumed by Christianity in the crisis of the ancient world.