Théodore Reinach

Who was Théodore Reinach?

Théodore Reinach was a French archaeologist, mathematician, lawyer, papyrologist, philologist, epigrapher, historian, numismatist, musicologist, professor, and politician.

Educated at the Lycée Condorcet, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Ecole des Sciences Politiques, he had a brilliant career as a scholar, and was called to the Parisian bar, where he practised from 1881 to 1886, but eventually devoted himself to the study of numismatics. He became Chair in ancient numismatics at the Collège de France and was a director of various journals. In 1917, during World War I, he worked on assignment in the United States.

He wrote important works on the ancient kingdoms of Asia Minor–Trois royaumes de l'Asie Mineure, Cappadoce, Bithynie, Pont, Mithridate Eupator; also a critical edition and translation with H Weil of Plutarch's Treatise on Music; and an Histoire des Israélites depuis la ruine de leur indépendance nationale jusqu'à nos jours.

From 1888 to 1897 Théodore Reinach edited the Revue des études grecques.

In 1886, Théodore Reinach married Charlotte Marie Evelyne Hirsch. They had two daughters but she died at age twenty-six in 1889. Théodore Reinach married a second time in 1891 to Fanny Kann, a daughter of Maximilien Kann and Betty Ephrussi. They made their home in a chateau at La Motte-Servolex in the Savoie department in southeastern France. As a resident there, Théodore Reinach was elected to the Chamber of Deputies of France as a member of the Bloc des gauches, serving from 1906–1914.