Latin Literature

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Article

Santra, Roman tragic poet and scholar, 1st cent. BCE  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature

Santra, Roman tragic poet and scholar (1st cent. bce), wrote lives of literary figures and a work On the Antiquity of Words.

Article

satire  

Emily J. Gowers

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Satire was first classified as a literary form in Rome. ‘Satire, at any rate, is all our own,’ boasted *Quintilian (10. 1. 93) of the genre that depicted Rome in the least flattering light. Originally simply a hotch-potch (in verse, or in prose and verse mixed), satire soon acquired its specific character as a humorous or malicious exposé of hypocrisy and pretension; however, it continued to be a hold-all for mismatched subjects, written in an uneven style and overlapping with other genres. The author himself figured prominently in a variety of shifting roles: civic watchdog, sneering cynic, mocking or indignant observer, and social outcast.Satura is the feminine of satur, ‘full’, and was transferred to literary miscellanies from lanx satura, a dish crammed with first fruits, or from satura, a mixed stuffing or sausage. *Juvenal, for example, claims (1. 86) to be filling his writing tablets with a .

Article

Saturnian verse  

H. D. Jocelyn and Gesine Manuwald

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Saturnian verse, a form of verse employed in the 3rd and 2nd cents. bce for epitaphs and triumphal commemorations. According to *Ennius, the utterances of prophetic mediums had once been cast in it. *Livius Andronicus set in it an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey, and Cn. *Naevius an epic narrative of the First *Punic War. Augustan poets talked of its shaggy and unclean rhythm (Hor. Epist. 2. 1. 156–60). Some theoreticians thought that the form had originated in Italy and had never had metrical regularity imposed upon it (cf. Serv., on Verg., G. 2. 385). Others detected analogues in Ionian iambic and Athenian dramatic verse. Heavily influential on all later discussion has been *Caesius Bassus' analysis of malum dabunt Metelli Naevio poetae (an alleged threat to Naevius by contemporary politicians) as a combination of a short iambic with a short trochaic length.Study of early Germanic and Celtic forms of verse led to the proposal of a theory that the Saturnian was a pattern of accented and unaccented syllables rather than one of longs and shorts. This view was formulated by O.

Article

scholarship, ancient, Latin  

Robert A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Philosophy
The origins of scholarship at Rome are lost to view, along with much of Rome's earliest scholarly writing. Suetonius' attempt (Gramm. 2) to trace Rome's first experience of Hellenistic scholarship to the visit of *Crates (3) of Mallos around 167 bce is more colourful than reliable; it no doubt captures, however, the kind of contact that was influential in the course of the 2nd cent., when a ‘great flock’ of learned men came to Rome from Greece (Polyb. 31. 24. 6 f.). By the end of the 2nd cent. and the start of the 1st not only was there substantial learning displayed in the Didascalica of *Accius and the satires of *Lucilius (1), but L. *Aelius had developed what would be the three main foci of Roman scholarship: ‘antiquities’, treating the institutions and beliefs of Rome and her neighbours; literary studies, including questions of authenticity and literary history (but little that we would recognize as ‘literary criticism’); and the more or less systematic study of language, especially (in this early period) *etymology and semantics.

Article

scholia  

M. D. Reeve

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Scholia—from the Greek σχόλιον, first attested when *Cicero quotes it back at T. *Pomponius Atticus (Att. 16. 7. 3)—are notes on a text, anything from a continuous commentary to one-word jottings; but normally the term refers to substantial sets of exegetical and critical notes written in the margin or between the lines of manuscripts. As many of these go back to ancient commentaries, it carries historical implications absent from ‘gloss’, which suggests paraphrase or humdrum explanation.In antiquity commentaries filled volumes of their own, and some survive in that form, such as *Hipparchus (3) on *Aratus (1) or *Asconius on Cicero's speeches. Text and commentary alternate in PLille 76d of *Callimachus (3) (3rd cent. bce) and POxy. 2221 of *Nicander (1st cent. ce); notes occupy the margins of some papyri, such as POxy. 841 of *Pindar (2nd cent. ce); but even after the adoption of the codex no Latin scribes before the Carolingian revival surround the text with commentary, and products like Oxyrhynchus Papyri 2258 of the 6th or 7th cent.

Article

Scribonius Aphrodisius  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature

Scribonius Aphrodisius, freedman of Augustus' second wife, *Scribonia, and formerly slave of Horace's teacher *Orbilius Pupillus, wrote on Latin orthography, attacking the work and character of his contemporary *Verrius Flaccus (Suet.Gramm. 19).

Article

the self in Latin literature  

Thomas Habinek

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
09 June 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature

Although the Latin language has no single term equivalent to the English expression “the self,” Latin literature has been understood by scholars to rely upon and engage with various concepts of selfhood or personal identity. Inquiry into the Roman self or selves is a relatively recent phenomenon, with antecedents in social scientists’ longstanding concern with culturally specific models of identity.1 Despite such precedents, classical scholars have generally focused more on the possible resemblance of the Roman self to modern Euro-American concepts than on analyzing Roman notions of individual identity on their own terms.

Perhaps the best-represented type of self in Latin literature is a rhetorical self, that is, an identity projected to the public by means of speaking, writing, and other types of social performance. Elite Romans would have received training in personal image construction as part of their literary and rhetorical education, which was explicitly concerned with the practice of and selection among various possible projections of character.

Article

Sempronius Asellio, Roman historian and military tribune  

Christopher Pelling

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography

Roman historian and military tribune at *Numantia in 134–3 bce. He wrote a history (res gestae) of his own time. In the proem he distinguished his work from annals: he would not just list events, but explain motives and reasons (this may reflect the influence of *Polybius (1)): that was the way to inspire virtue and patriotism. His work perhaps began in 146 (possibly continuing Polybius); it covered the year 137 in bk. 4, Ti. *Sempronius Gracchus (3)'s death in bk. 5, and M. *Livius Drusus (2)'s death (91 bce) in bk 14. *Cicero thought it artistically retrograde (Leg. 1. 6).

Article

sententia  

William Smith Watt and M. Winterbottom

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Sententia, whose basic meaning is ‘way of thinking’, came to have specialized senses, such as an opinion expressed in the senate, the judgement of a judge, and the spirit (as opposed to the letter) of the law. In literary criticism, it came to connote a brief saying embodying a striking thought. Such sayings could be gnomic (see gnōmē) and moralizing (so Cic. Nat. De. 1. 85 of Epicurus' Kyriai Doxai); a collection attributed to *Publilius Syrus survives. But they were often specially coined for a particular context. They probably played a part in ‘Asianic’ rhetoric and *declamation (see asianism and atticism); but Latin, with its terseness and love of antithesis and word play, took to them with especial enthusiasm. Even the florid *Cicero was thought not to lack them (Quint. 12. 10. 48), and the declamation school gave them a natural home; the elder Seneca's collection (see annaeus seneca(1), l.

Article

Sentius Augurinus  

John Wight Duff, Geoffrey Bernard Abbott Fletcher, and Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Sentius Augurinus, a young friend praised by *Pliny (2) (Ep. 4. 27; 9. 8) for writing ‘Poems in Little’ (poematia) marked by charm and tenderness, but sometimes by satire. Pliny quotes eight hendecasyllabics by him in the manner of *Catullus and C. *Licinius Calvus.

Article

Septimius, Publius  

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture

Publius Septimius, a republican writer on architecture mentioned by Vitruvius (7. praef. 14).

Article

Septimius Serenus  

Edward Courtney

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Septimius Serenus seems to have flourished in the mid-third cent. ce. He wrote at least two books of Opuscula Ruralia in a wide variety of often recherché metres, some introduced by himself; the influence of *Laevius is apparent in metre and diction. This work was widely read and popular; it survived until the 9th cent., when a Bobbio library catalogue lists it united with the translation of *Dictys of Crete by L.

Article

Serenus Sammonicus  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature

Serenus Sammonicus, prolific scholar who wrote an antiquarian work, Res reconditae (at least 5 books), addressed to *Septimius Severus and (probably) to *Caracalla, on whose orders he was murdered early in 212. He is possibly to be identified with the poet *Septimius Serenus.

Article

'Sergius'  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
‘Sergius’, name under which are transmitted the Explanationes in Donatum (GL 4. 486–565, cf. Anecdota Helvetica143–58, and U. Schindel, Die lateinischen Figurenlehren [1975]) and several other minor treatises (Keil, Gramm. Lat. 4. 475–85, 6. 240–42, 7. 537–39). The name ‘Sergius’ is often confused in manuscripts with ‘*Servius’.

Article

sermo  

John Wight Duff and M. Winterbottom

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature

Sermo has a variety of meanings in Latin. They include

(1) conversation and its relaxed style (contrasted with oratory and its energetic style, contentio);

(2) verse in a conversational manner (esp. of Horace's Satires and Epistles: see Epist. 1. 4. 1);

(3) language or dialect (thus Cic. De or.

Article

Serranus  

Edward Courtney

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature

Serranus, an epic poet who, like *Saleius Bassus (with whom he is linked by Quint. 10. 1. 89–90 and Juv. 7. 80), died prematurely.

Article

Servasius, Sulpicius Lupercus, Junior  

J. H. D. Scourfield

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Sulpicius Lupercus Servasius Junior (his name is uncertain: ‘Serbastus’, MS Leiden Voss. Lat. F 111; ‘Sebastus’, Schryver, Baehrens; ‘Servastus’, Wernsdorf; ‘Servasius’, Riese; ?‘Sebastius’, Smolak), author of a poem in three Sapphic stanzas on the effects of time, and of another, in 42 elegiac lines, on greed. Date unknown (4th cent. ce or later?).

Article

Servius, grammarian and commentator, 4th cent. CE  

James Frederick Mountford, Peta G. Fowler, and Don P. Fowler

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Servius (called Marius or Maurus Servius Honoratus in manuscripts from the 9th cent. onwards), author of a celebrated commentary on *Virgil, based on an earlier work (now lost) of Aelius *Donatus (1). Servius is one of the participants in *Macrobius' dialogue the Saturnalia (dramatic date 383–4: cf. P. V. Davies, Macrobius, The Saturnalia (1969), 9), where he is depicted as a young man. The Virgil commentary exists in two forms: the longer, known as Servius Auctus, Servius Danielis, Scholia Danielis, or Scholia Danielis, was first published in 1600 by Pierre Daniel, and is thought to be a 7th–8th cent. ce expansion of the shorter form on the basis of earlier material from Donatus' commentary not used by Servius himself. Both versions, but especially Scholia Danielis, contain important information about Latinity, Roman customs and institutions (especially in relation to religion), and intertextuality with works now lost to us, though neither are completely reliable in matters such as statements of usage in earlier writers. But Servius' own poetics merit investigation and appreciation (cf. J.

Article

Severus, Sulpicius  

Arnaldo Momigliano and Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography
Latin historian who was born in Aquitania c. ce360. A member of a prominent family, he studied law in Bordeaux and became a convert to Christianity c.389 together with his friend *Paulinus of Nola. After the death of his aristocratic wife, he organized under the influence of Bishop Martin of Tours a sort of monastic life on his own estates for himself and his friends. In old age he seems to have passed through a period of Pelagianism (see pelagius). He died c.ce 420. Gennadius wrote a brief biography of him (Viris illustribus 19), and we have also thirteen letters to him by Paulinus. His extant works are: (1) a life of (Saint) Martin of Tours which is an apology for *asceticism and is supplemented by three letters on Martin's miracles and death and by a dialogue which compares Martin's feats with those of the Egyptian hermits;(2) a universal chronicle to ce 400 which is an important source for the history of 4th-cent.

Article

Sevius Nicanor, Marcus, late 2nd–early 1st cent. BCE  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature

Marcus Sevius Nicanor (late 2nd–early 1st cent. bce), a *freedman and the first Roman grammarian to win fame by teaching, wrote *commentarii (said to be largely plagiarized) and a satura (Suet.Gram. 5; see satire).