Erich Julius Adolf Bethe (2 May 1863 – 19 October 1940) was a German classical philologist who was a native of Stettin. In 1887 he earned his doctorate from the University of Göttingen, later receiving his habilitation at Bonn in 1891. From 1893 to 1897 he was an associate professor at the University of Rostock, afterwards serving as a professor of classical philology at the Universities of Basel (1897-1903), Giessen (1903–06) and Leipzig (1906-1931). In 1927–28 he was rector at the University of Leipzig. Bethe was married to the German painter Margarethe Loewe-Bethe.