As the subtitle suggests, the volume under review presents biographical portraits of Classicists holding a chair at the University of Greifswald over the 90 years from 1856 to 1946. The thirteen portraits written by modern-day colleagues from the respective disciplines include six philologists (in chronological order: Franz Susemihl, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Georg Kaibel, Eduard Norden, Konrat Ziegler and Franz Dornseiff), three ancient historians (Otto Seeck, Matthias Gelzer and Josef Keil), one archaeologist (Erich Pernice) as well as three theologians working in related fields of research (Julius Wellhausen, Victor Schulze and Ernst Lohmeyer). The volume is bookended by an introduction by the editor Froehlich and an appendix covering a chronological list of the professors of classical studies working at Greifswald and several indexes (including names and topics). The introduction consists of general remarks on the situation of the University of Greifswald in the aforementioned time span and abstracts of the chapters that follow.

With regard to the individual chapters, the editor acknowledges a certain heterogeneity (p. 5), which is partly due to the origin of the volume: the chapters started as lectures in a series wittily titled ‘Local Heroes. Classicists of worldwide recognition from Greifswald’. It is indeed astonishing how many famous Classicists were at one time or another professors at Greifswald, some of them very early in their career (e.g. Norden became Extraordinarius at Greifswald at the age of 26, Wilamowitz even became full professor at the same age). Depending on the existing scholarly literature on the academics in question, some of the portraits focus almost exclusively on the years spent at Greifswald (e.g. the piece on Wilamowitz-Moellendorff), and some cover their complete academic career (e.g. the piece on Kaibel). Only very few of the papers are rather sketchy and betray their origin as lectures (e.g. the chapters on Ziegler and Keil). In contrast, a couple of the chapters are well-documented and almost short monographs (especially the chapters on Kaibel and Pernice).

Most contributions concentrate on the scholars and their academic achievements. However, several papers stand out in so far as they reveal a good deal about contemporary academia and social surroundings (e.g. p. 65: it took the faculty only a few days to send a list of candidates for the vacant chair of Greek studies; or p. 75 on two points of controversy in the arts and humanities faculty at Greifswald; in the paper on Norden there is much to be learned about Jewish life in Greifswald; and the last paper on Lohmeyer is an impressive portrait of a gifted and prolific theologian who was falsely accused and executed after the Second World War).

Everyone interested in the history of Classics will gain many insights from this book about an important time period of German Altertumswissenschaft. In addition, the volume is attractively and carefully produced as well as richly illustrated by more than 50 black-and-white reproductions of photographs and documents.