Tyrolean poetry to demonstrate that the Romans conceived ghosts as inhabiting the
floor, on the basis of an enigmatic passage of the Elder Pliny (Nat.28.27; Samter
1901: 108 –14); Hermann Usener’s Götternamen(3rd edn. 1896) took comparative
linguistics and ethnography to new heights in attempting to make sense of those
enigmatic Roman divinities (Phillips 2001), an approach which Wagenvoort much
later significantly expanded (1947). Retrospectively, though, German classicists’ use
of ethnographic material seems short-lived for two interrelated reasons. The con-
ceptual hostility of senior academics such as Wilamowitz (supraC2) was itself a func-
tion of the dominant post-Kantian idealist tradition with its double epistemology,
in which human historical development was inevitably separated from the natural
sciences and their views of evolution. Perhaps the clearest example appears with
Wilamowitz’s qualms about the “Frankfurt School,” although the works of some
of those (Kerényi, Otto) did not make the best possible case for their position (Schlesier
1994: 215–18). Not all were hostile, of course; Ludwig Deubner, himself a pupil of
Usener, welcomed the comparative material of Samter’s Geburt, Hochzeit und Tod
(1911) even though demurring from some of the conclusions (Deubner 1920:
419 –21). Finally, of course, there was outright scholarly jingoism. Two quotations
suffice: from the United Kingdom: “It is absolutely impossible in these days to dis-
pense with the works of a long series of anthropologists, many of them fortunately
British... ,” and from Germany on Wissowa: “Ethnologische Gesichtspunkte wer-
den von ihm sorgfältig vermieden.. .” (Fowler 1911: 19; Wide 1912: 270). Of course
there exist exceptions, and thus in 1911 Hermann Diels proposed Frazer for mem-
bership in the Prussian Academy in a letter which shows considerable appreciation
for comparative ethnography (Calder and Ehlers 1991); that Diels was a regular
correspondent with the generally despised (in Germany) Usener (Calder and Ehlers
1991: 141 n. 5) should caution us against overly interpreting public pronouncements,
valuable though they be.
Darwin and his theories further differentiated studies of Roman religion in the
two countries. Although Darwin treated only biological speciation, not using the
word “evolution” in his first edition, others soon expanded his views to societal
evolution, arguing that since biological speciation was “scientifically” proven, so must
be societal evolution (Burrow 1966). The way seemed clear, finally and “scientific-
ally,” to answer the crucial questions, as Oxford scholars combined comparative ethno-
graphy, evolution, and classical studies. German scientists nationalistically rejected
evolution in favor of their own rather different theorizing, further dooming larger
vistas for those German scholars who had dared to utilize ethnographic material (Burrow
1967).
Finally, there is the striking difference of academic venue between Germany and
Britain. Much of the Prussian plan for German unification devolved on universities,
part of Humboldt’s grandiose humanistic scheme. Humboldt’s enormous influence,
though, could not counteract German classicists’ long-standing affection for Kantian
empiricism, which provided philosophical support for their rejection of the British
comparative evolutionary anthropology; thus German classical scholarship focused
on what is often called “Big Scholarship,” the editing of and commenting on clas-
sical texts, literary and otherwise; the compilation of enormous reference works; the
Approaching Roman Religion 21