Latin Literature

Sign in Modify your search

Perform this search in

Narrow Your Choices

Availability

Subject

 441-460 of 506 Results  for:

  • Latin Literature x
Clear all

Article

Tacitus (1), Roman historian  

Ellen O'Gorman

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography
Cornelius Tacitus, Roman historian, orator, and politician. His dates are usually assumed to be 56–120 ce and he is likely to have come from Narbonese Gaul. He was politically active from the reign of Vespasian to that of Trajan or Hadrian and was consul in 97 ce and proconsular governor of Asia in 112 ce. In the reigns of Nerva and Trajan he turned to historical writing, producing three short works (a biography, an ethnography, and a dialogue on oratory) and two long histories. The biography of his father-in-law Agricola (Agricola) includes extensive discussion of the province of Britain and Agricola’s campaigns there in 77–84 ce. The ethnography (Germania) focuses on Germany and the dialogue (Dialogus) investigates how oratory has changed in the Principate. The first of the longer works (Histories) starts with the civil war of 69 ce and treats the three emperors of the Flavian dynasty, probably ending with Domitian’s assassination in 96 ce.

Article

Tauriscus (1), anomalist grammarian  

J. S. Rusten

Article

Publication History:

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

Tauriscus (1), an anomalist grammarian, pupil of *Crates(3) of Mallus, first used τρόπος (trope) as contrasted with κυριολεξία (use of literal expressions): cf. Sextus EmpiricusAdversus mathematicos 1. 248 f. See analogy and anomaly.

Article

technopaignia  

Jan Kwapisz

Article

Publication History:

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

The term technopaignia is primarily used with reference to the six Greek figure poems of the Palatine Anthology (Anth. Pal. 15.21–22, 24–27); in likely chronological order, these are Axe, Wings of Eros, and Egg by Simias of Rhodes, Syrinx, attributed to Theocritus, and two Altars. The lines of these poems vary in length, through metrical manipulation, to form the outlines of the described objects. The emergence of pattern poetry in the Hellenistic period reflects the broader penchant for bridging art and literature and was due to the development of book culture, including in particular the tradition of metrical experimentalism. The term technopaignia is at times extended to include Roman picture poems, such as the fragmentarily attested figure poem Phoenix by Laevius, a snake-shaped graffito poem from Pompeii (CIL IV 1595), and the highly refined visual poetry of Optatianus Porfyrius. The six Greek technopaignia and the grid poems of Optatianus Porfyrius are followed by a long line of imitators in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond. The term technopaignia is also used more generally for all sorts of ancient linguistic games.

Article

Terence  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Terence (Publius Terentius Afer), the Roman playwright, author of fabulae palliatae in the 160s bce. The Life by *Suetonius records that he was born at Carthage, came to Rome as a slave in the household of a senator called Terentius Lucanus, was soon freed, but died still young on a visit to Greece in 159. As usual, we have no way to check this information; his Carthaginian birth (see carthage) may have been an incorrect deduction from his cognomen (Afer, ‘the African’; see names, personal, roman). He was patronized by prominent Romans, and his last play, Adelphoe, was commissioned by P. *Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus and his brother for performance at the funeral games for their father L. *Aemilius Paullus(2) in 160. The previous year, his Eunuchus had been an outstanding success, marked by a repeat performance and an unprecedentedly large financial reward. His one known failure was Hecyra, which twice had to be abandoned in the face of competition from rival attractions (first a tightrope walker and boxers, then a gladiatorial show); Terence's account of these misfortunes in his prologue for the third production is exceptional evidence for conditions of performance at the time.

Article

Terentianus Maurus, late 2nd–early 3rd cent. CE  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

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

Terentianus (RE 1) Maurus (late 2nd–early 3rd cent. CE), authority on phonology, prosody, and metre who composed his works entirely in verse (Keil, Gramm. Lat. 6. 325–413: 2,981 lines, lacking the end). He relied heavily on *Caesius Bassus and in turn was much used by later scholars.

Article

Terentius Scaurus, Quintus  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Noted grammarian under Hadrian. His commentary on *Horace (in at least ten books) and polemics against *Caesellius Vindex are lost; a version of his writings on orthography survives (Keil, Gramm. Lat. 7. 11–33). His large-scale Ars grammatica (more than one book), used by later writers, is lost, but a version simplified for school use may be preserved in a 9th-cent. manuscript now in Munich (V.

Article

Terentius Varro Atacinus, Publius  

Edward Courtney

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Terentius Varro Atacinus, Publius, a poet born in the Atax (Aude) valley in Gallia Narbonensis or at *Narbo itself in 82 bce. Nothing is known of his life except that he learned Greek at the age of thirty-five (Jerome, Chronicle ). The first of his poems was no doubt his Bellum Sequanicum , an historical epic on Caesar's campaign of 58 bce. After he made the acquaintance of Greek literature, he translated *Apollonius (1) Rhodius under the title Argonautae , wrote amatory verse addressed to a “Leucadia” (Prop. 2.34.85; Ov. Tr. 2.439), a name chosen, like “Lesbia,” to recall *Sappho (if this was in elegiacs it was his only work not in hexameters), and composed two didactic works, Chorographia (which seems to show knowledge of Alexander of Ephesus) and Ephemeris (the title is an emendation), a poem on weather forecasting in which he used *Aratus (1) (his version influenced Virgil's treatment of the same topic in G.

Article

Terentius Varro, Marcus  

Robert A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Linguistics
Varro (according to Petrarch) was “the third great light of Rome”—after Vergil and Cicero—and certainly Rome's greatest scholar. Though the great bulk of his work survives only in fragments, the quotations and paraphrases that those fragments preserve make his influence on subsequent writers evident: much of later Latin literature, from the Aeneid of Vergil down to St. Augustine's City of God, would look very different had they been unable to draw upon his learning. His writings covered nearly every branch of inquiry: history, geography, rhetoric, law, philosophy, music, medicine, architecture, religion, and more.Marcus Terentius Varro, (116–27bce), was born at Reate, in the Sabine territory (see sabini) NE of Rome. After studying at Rome with L. Aelius, the first true scholar of Latin literature and antiquities, and at Athens with the Academic philosopher Antiochus of Ascalon, Varro began a public career that brought him to the praetorship and, ultimately, to service on the Pompeian side (see .

Article

Testamentum Porcelli  

Leofranc Holford-Strevens

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Myth and Religion

The purported will (4th cent. ce) of a piglet before slaughter at the Saturnalia, parodying the informal military will; beloved of schoolboys and deplored by Jerome, it expresses barbed humour in variegated diction.

Article

textual criticism  

M. D. Reeve

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Latin Literature
  3. Reception
Textual criticism sets out to establish what a text originally said or meant to say. Anyone who checks a garbled message with the sender has given a faultless demonstration of it. Classical texts, which have mostly come down through a succession of copies, present stiffer challenges. Even some inscriptions (see epigraphy) are corrupt.Politian (Poliziano; see scholarship, classical, history of) in 1489 first refined ancient methods by showing that for historical reconstruction authorities were less to be counted than weighed and derivative ones ignored. He made such arresting discoveries as that all copies of Cicero's Ad familiares in circulation derived from one misbound ancestor. For 300 years these insights were seldom exploited even by critics good at picking out valuable witnesses, like Heinsius and Bentley; and when genealogical classification finally took hold, among editors of the Bible in the later 18th cent. and of classical texts in the 1820s, it was not until 1872 that the historical linguist Johannes Schmidt framed the cardinal principle, still often flouted, that in a family only shared innovations indicate a closer relationship.

Article

theatre staging, Roman  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Material Culture
The staging of the plays of *Plautus and *Terence has to be worked out almost entirely from the texts themselves; the theatres in which they were performed have not survived. (The first Roman theatre to last for any length of time was built by *Pompey in 55 bce, with a seating capacity estimated at 10,000. Later theatres in the Roman world were increasingly elaborate: see theatres (greek and roman), structure.) Plays put on at the Megalesian Games (see ludi) were performed outside the temple of *Cybele on the *Palatine, others probably outside other temples or in the *forum Romanum, normally on wooden stages erected for the occasion. As in Greece, plays were performed in daytime in the open air, and the action was supposed to take place out of doors.The stage generally represents a street, fronted by at most three houses, and with side-exits/-entrances to left and right; the street is normally called platea, rarely angiportum (more commonly used to refer to a back street not visible to the spectators).

Article

Tiberianus  

J. H. D. Scourfield

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Tiberianus, poet of late 3rd or early 4th cent. ce, precise identity in doubt. Most notable among his surviving compositions are a philosophical hymn to the Supreme Being, and the Amnis ibat, whose feeling for nature prompted Baehrens's suggestion (recently restated by Alan Cameron) that Tiberianus also composed the *Pervigilium Veneris.

Article

Tibullus, Albius  

R. O. A. M. Lyne and Robert Maltby

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Albius Tibullus, born between 55 and 48 bce. A short Life, possibly derived from *Suetonius, tells us that he was good-looking (cf. Hor.Epist. 1. 4. 6) and well-dressed; also that he was of equestrian rank (see equites) and won dona militaria (military awards) on campaign in Aquitania. The Life is preceded by an epigram of *Domitius Marsus, which fixes the date of Tibullus' death in 19 bce.Tibullus implies that his patrimony was diminished, possibly, like that of *Propertius, by Octavian's confiscations of 41–40 bce (1. 1. 19–22, 41–2; see augustus; proscription), though other explanations are possible (e.g. later land-confiscations of 36 or 31 bce, extravagance of his father, cf. Hor.Sat. 1.4.105–11). However, paupertas is a literary topos and neither he nor Propertius were reduced to economic dependence. *Horace indeed suggests that he was well-off, and possessed a *villa at Pedum between *Tibur and *Praeneste (Epist.

Article

Ticida, Lucius  

Edward Courtney

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Lucius Ticida, a Roman eques (see equites) and partisan of *Caesar executed in 46 bce (BAfr. 44. 1, 46. 3), wrote poems like those of *Licinius Calvus and *Catullus(1) in style and content, including erotic poems to ‘Perilla’, i.e. Metella (Apul. Apol.10), probably the daughter of *Clodia and Q.

Article

Timagenes, of Alexandria (1), Greek rhetor and historian  

Livia Capponi

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek History and Historiography
  2. Latin Literature
  3. Roman History and Historiography
Timagenes of Alexandria (1), according to Suda the son of a royal banker (βασιλικοῦ ἀργυραμοιβοῦ υἱός), was a Greek rhetor and historian, who came to Rome as a captive in 55 bce with Gabinius(2) and was ransomed and subsequently set free by Sulla’s son Faustus Cornelius Sulla (FGrH 88 T1).1 He lived and worked in Rome, and is mentioned alongside Caecilius (1) of Caleacte and Craton as a distinguished rhetor (T 1 and 2). Initially a favourite of the Emperor Augustus, he later incurred the princeps’ displeasure by his “reckless wit” (temeraria urbanitas) and went to live at the house of C. Asinius Pollio, where he enjoyed continuing popularity (T 2 and 3). “He wrote many books” (T 1), but all that is extant is the title of On Kings (peri basileōn), an attempt at writing a universal history of foreign kings from the earliest times to Augustus. Two historical fragments on papyri of the Roman period, respectively, P.

Article

Titinius  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

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

Titinius, author of fabulae togatae (see fabula; togata), probably first half of 2nd cent. bce, praised for his character-drawing. Some 180 lines and 15 titles survive, showing a lively style.

Article

Titius, Gaius, 2nd cent. BCE  

M. Winterbottom

Article

Publication History:

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

Gaius Titiusm (2nd cent. bce), Roman eques (see equites). *Cicero comments (Brut.167) on his adroit language in both oratory and tragedy. A striking fragment of a speech survives (Macrob.Sat. 3. 16. 15–16).

Article

togata  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Togata (sc. *fabula, ‘drama in a toga’—though not all the characters are likely to have worn a *toga), a type of comedy written at Rome in the 2nd cent. bce, also apparently known as tabernaria (‘private-house drama’). Three principal authors are known, all surviving in fragments only: *Titinius (perhaps earlier than Terence), L. *Afranius (1), and T. *Quinctius Atta (died 77 bce). The plays (in verse—and played in *masks?) showed Italian characters of all classes in Italian or Roman settings; Roman names occur in the fragments, and some interesting differences from the *palliata are reported: Donatus on Ter. Eun.57 ‘In the palliata comic playwrights are allowed to portray slaves as wiser than their masters, which is generally not permitted in the togata’ (but deceptions by slaves seem to have been found); and *Quintilian 10. 1. 100 remarks on the pederastic themes in Afranius (themes more or less excluded from New Comedy (see comedy (greek), new) and palliata).

Article

topos  

Glenn W. Most and Gian Biagio Conte

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Reception
Topos, a standard form of rhetorical argumentation or a variably expressible literary commonplace.In classical rhetoric, inventio aids the orator to find elements of persuasion: τόποι or loci are both the places where such elements (especially plausible argumentative patterns) lurk, and those patterns themselves (e.g. Arist.Rh. 2. 22–3; Quint. Inst. 5. 10); if universally applicable (in various senses) they can be called κοινοὶ τόποι or loci communes. They are the habitual tools of ordinary thought but can also be studied and technically applied. No two rhetoricians provide the same catalogue, but some of the more familiar τόποι include arguments ad hominem or a fortiori, from homonymy or *etymology, from antecedents or effects.Although in this sense the ancient discussions remain important for contemporary analyses of everyday argumentation, the general decline of rhetoric in modern culture has led topoi, like other rhetorical concepts, to seek refuge in literary studies. The recent critical topos of applying the term also, and especially, to commonly but variably expressed literary contents (clichéd metaphors and commonplace thoughts) ultimately derives from E.

Article

Trabea  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

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

Author of fabulae palliatae (two fragments in Ribbeck, CRF), perhaps earlier than Caecilius; he could stir the emotions, according to Varro. See palliata.