Winterling, who was born in 1956 in Leverkusen, studied from 1974 to 1981 History, Germanic and Classical Philology at the University of Cologne. The study of classical philology, he graduated in 1981 with the First State Examination in Philology. Three years later, in 1984, he received his doctorate with a study of the early modern court of Cologne. From 1986 to 1992 Winterling worked at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich as Lecturer and Assistant Professor. In 1992 he finally qualified as a specialist in Ancient History and in 1993 took a professorship at the University of Bielefeld, where he was professor of general history with special reference to ancient history. In 2002 he moved to a position as Professor of Ancient History and Historical Anthropology at the Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg, where he was since 2004 dean of the Faculty. Since 1 October 2007 was Winterling as successor to Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg, professor of ancient history at the University of Basel. Since February 2009 he is to succeed Klaus-Peter Johne Professor of Ancient History at the Humboldt University in Berlin._x000D_
Winterling's research interests lie in the field of Greek and Roman social history and historical anthropology. Above all, he has emerged as the author of several monographs and articles on the subject of court and monarchy in the ancient and early modern times, on this subject, he has also published several collections of essays. Other research interests include the Greek philosopher Aristotle and the German sociologist Max Weber. Winterling also submitted before an acclaimed biography of the controversial Roman emperor Caligula, which was translated into several languages. Here he tried by the negative portrayal in the ancient sources as an embossed image of Caligula "Caesar madness" correct infested ruler and differentiate. Aloys Winterling is co-editor of the magazine and the publication series Historia Historia individual writings and historical studies of the Campus Campus Verlag. He also gives the Encyclopedia of Greco-Roman antiquity (Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich) out.