Which historian won the 1902 Nobel Prize in Literature for work including A History of Rome?

Theodor Mommsen won the 1902 Nobel Prize in Literature for work including A History of Rome.

Mommsen was a German historian, classicist, jurist, and politician whose three-volume Römische Geschichte—usually published in English as The History of Rome—appeared between 1854 and 1856. The work focused especially on Rome’s development through the end of the Roman Republic and combined political, military, legal, economic, and social history.

The Swedish Academy honored him as “the greatest living master of the art of historical writing,” giving special recognition to his monumental history of Rome. The award was notable because Mommsen was chiefly known as a historian rather than a novelist or poet.

Mommsen was the second Nobel literature laureate, following Sully Prudhomme’s inaugural prize in 1901. He died in 1903, so the 1902 award came near the end of his life. Theodor Mommsen remains the clearest example of a historian receiving the literature prize primarily for historical writing.