SEECK, OTTO. - Protestant historian, b. in Riga on 2 February 1850, d. 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, taking his doctorate under Th. Mommsen in 1872. A lecturer in 1877, he became in 1881 associate professor and in 1885 full professor of ancient history at the University of Greifswald, whence he moved in 1907 to that of Münster. He published the Notitia dignitatum in 1876 and was a collaborator on the Monumenta Germaniae historica (for which he edited Symmachus in 1883); he dealt with the sources of the Odyssey (Quellen der Odyssee, 1887) and with various subjects of ancient history (Kalendertafel der Pontifices, 1885; Entwicklung der antiken Geschichtsschreibung, 1898; Kaiser Augustus, 1902; Die Briefe des Libanius zeitlich geordnet, 1920).
Particular mention is due to his Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste für die Jahre 311-476 (1918-19) and to the 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, tending to find in the progressive barbarization of the "races" the sole cause of the fall of the Empire. S. completely missed the importance assumed by Christianity in the crisis of the ancient world.
Bibliography
Silvio Furlani