Latin Literature

Sign in Modify your search

Perform this search in

Narrow Your Choices

Availability

Subject

 141-160 of 506 Results  for:

  • Latin Literature x
Clear all

Article

Cupido amans  

J. H. D. Scourfield

Article

Publication History:

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

A poem of unknown authorship, in sixteen hexameters, on Cupid in love; post-Augustan.

Article

Curiatius Maternus, Roman dramatist  

M. Winterbottom

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
The host and main speaker in *Tacitus' Dialogus, he champions poetry against oratory and explains the decay of eloquence by appeal to historical circumstances. His (lost) plays included praetextae (see fabula) on *Cato Censorius and a Domitius. He may be the ‘sophist’ (see second sophistic) killed by *Domitian (Cass.

Article

Curtius Montanus  

M. T. Griffin

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Curtius Montanus was prosecuted under *Nero for his satiric poems, at the same time as *Thrasea Paetus and *Helvidius Priscus were condemned for treason. He was excluded from holding any public office and entrusted to the care of his father (Tac.Ann. 16. 28, 29, 33). The latter is probably the Curtius Montanus who in 70 ce attacked M.

Article

Curtius Rufus, Quintus, rhetorician and historian  

Albert Brian Bosworth

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Curtius (RE 31) Rufus, Quintus rhetorician and historian, wrote during the 1st or early 2nd cent. ce (under *Claudius remains the preferred choice). His ten-book history of *Alexander (3) the Great goes as far as the satrapy distributions at *Babylon. The first two books (down to 333 bce) are lost (and there are substantial lacunae elsewhere), and in what remains there are no statements of biography and few on method. His work is extremely rhetorical, close in tone to the Suasoriae of the elder Seneca (L. *Annaeus Seneca (1)); it contains many speeches of varied length and quality, and the narrative is suffused with moralizing comments and arbitrary attributions of motive. There is little consistency (after strong criticism in the body of the work the final appreciation of Alexander is pure encomium), and the exigencies of rhetoric determine the selection of source material. Consequently he switches arbitrarily from source to source and sometimes blends them into a senseless farrago. He has often been accused of deliberate fiction, but even in the speeches he used data from his regular sources and added an embroidery of rhetorical comment. He did not manufacture fact. He is by far the fullest derivative of *Cleitarchus and preserves much that is of unique value (particularly on *Macedonian custom; see assembly, macedonian); and he also records material common to *Arrian and probably made direct use of *Ptolemy (1) I.

Article

Dares of Phrygia  

Stephen J. Harrison

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Greek Myth and Religion
  2. Latin Literature
Dares of Phrygia, Trojan priest of *Hephaestus in the Iliad (5. 9) and supposed author of a pre-Homeric account of the Trojan War (Ael. VH 11. 2). The extant Daretis Phrygii de excidio Troiae historia (5th or 6th cent. ce) is represented in a fictional prefatory epistle from *Sallust to *Cornelius Nepos as a translation of this work by the former.

Article

declamation  

M. Winterbottom

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Declamation (Lat. declamatio, Gk. meletē) was over a very long period the main means employed by teachers of rhetoric to train their pupils for public speaking. It was invented by the Greeks, who brought it to Rome and the Roman world generally. Its developed forms were known in Latin as the controversia, a speech in character on one side of a fictional law case, and the suasoria, a deliberative speech advising a course of action in a historical, pseudo-historical, or mythological situation; the first trained for the courts, the second for the political assembly or committee room.The *sophists of the 5th cent. bce regarded it as their principal task to teach rhetoric. Surviving display speeches from this period, apparently intended as models for students, are clear forerunners of the controversia. *Antiphon (1)'s Tetralogies, arranged in speeches for and against, exemplify techniques of argument. In particular, *Gorgias (1)'s Palamedes displays a clear articulation that marks off parts of the speech and stages in the argument, and is clearly intended to train the student in systematic exposition.

Article

Declamationes pseudo-Quintilianeae  

M. Winterbottom

Article

Publication History:

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

Two sets of rhetorical pieces ascribed to *Quintilian.

(1) The Declamationes minores (‘Minor Declamations’) are the last 145 of a collection originally numbering 388. Each has a theme and a treatment (the length varies greatly). Their derivation from some rhetorical school is ensured by the frequent presence of sermones (‘chats’), giving a master's hints on the treatment of the controversia. That the master was Quintilian himself is quite possible but hardly provable.

(2) The Declamationes maiores (‘Major Declamations’) were already by the late 4th cent. ce circulating under the name of Quintilian, as quotations in Servius and Jerome prove; and there is evidence that they were ‘edited’ by scholars of that period. These highly coloured pieces can hardly come from the hand of Quintilian (for whose views on unreal declamation see Institutio oratoria 2. 10), but date and author(s) remain quite uncertain. See declamation.

Article

dedications, Latin  

Mario Citroni

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Honorific reference to a particular person in a work of prose or poetry, or in one part of a work, is extremely common in Latin literature. This is clearly connected with the important role played by the relationships of patronage (see patronage, literary, Roman) and friendship in the production and circulation of Latin literary texts. Dedication, by once and for all connecting the literary text with a particular person, is in itself an act of great honour, and it is also usually accompanied by explicit expressions of praise. It is generally placed at the beginning of the work, or shortly after the beginning: in works in more than one book, a dedication to the same person is often repeated at the beginning of some (e.g. *Quintilian) or all (e.g. *Columella) of the books. Alternatively, the various books may be dedicated to different people: for example, each of the three books of *Varro's De re rustica is addressed to a different dedicatee, while in his De lingua Latina 2–4 were dedicated to Septimius, 5 onwards to *Cicero.

Article

Dexippus, Publius Herennius, Athenian notable and historian, 3rd cent. CE  

Alexander Hugh McDonald and Antony Spawforth

Article

Publication History:

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

Athenian notable and historian (3rd cent. CE), author of (1) an account of the Successor-period (Τὰ μετὰ Ἀλέξανδρον), lost; (2) a History from mythical times to ce 269/70 in twelve books (fragments survive); and (3) a Scythian History (Σκυθικά) covering the Gothic Wars from ce 238 to Aurelian; preserved largely in *Zosimus, it has many Thucydidean echoes (see thucydides(2)). The ancient tradition (SHA Gall. 13. 8) that he personally led Athenian resistance to the *Heruli in ce 267 has been doubted, perhaps unreasonably (G. Martin).

Article

dialogue, Latin  

Jonathan G. F. Powell

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Dialogue in the general sense occurs in Latin literature not only in drama but also occasionally in the written versions of speeches, where a passage of dialogue between an orator and his opponent is called an altercatio, and notably in Roman *satire. The first Roman known to have written in the specific genre of the literary prose dialogue, in the manner of *Plato (1) and his successors, was M. Iunius Brutus (praetor c.140 bce), who composed three books on civil law, evidently in the form of a dialogue with his son (Cic., De or. 2. 223–4). *Cicero adopted the dialogue as the medium for most of his philosophical and rhetorical writing, employing Roman characters and settings.Cicero's first dialogues, De oratore (55 bce), De republica (54–51 bce) and De legibus (perhaps 52–51 bce), were explicitly modelled on Plato and contain a number of Platonic allusions. In the later period of his writing on philosophy and rhetoric (46–44 bce), Cicero experimented with a range of dialogue forms; his use of dialogue is both more varied and more sophisticated than has sometimes been thought.

Article

Dicta Catonis  

Alessandro Schiesaro

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Dicta Catonis, the title given to a versified handbook of morality, partly pagan, partly Christian, dating in its original form probably from the 3rd cent. ce, which was widely studied in the Middle Ages and translated into many European languages. The maxims are mostly concerned with aspects of private life, and represent, as proverbs do, the experience of the past, traceable sometimes to Greece, sometimes to Roman authors such as *Horace, *Ovid, or Seneca the Younger (L. *Annaeus Seneca (2)). The title ‘Cato’ was perhaps an unknown author's or compiler's acknowledgement of M. *Porcius Cato (1) (the Censor) as the first moralist of Rome. The attribution to ‘Dionysius Cato’, a Renaissance invention, survived from Scaliger's edition (1598) until the 19th cent. (Boas).The collection consists of (a) a prefatory epistle in prose; (b) 57 breves sententiae in prose; (c), its most important part, four books of hexameter Disticha (288 lines), bks.

Article

Dictys Cretensis  

Stephen J. Harrison

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Supposed companion of *Idomeneus (1) at Troy and alleged author of an account of the Trojan War; fragments survive from a Greek version of the 2nd/3rd cent. ce (PTeb. 2. 268). The extant Ephemeris belli Troiani (c.4th cent. ce), relating the Troy-saga from Cypria to Telegony (see Epic Cycle), is a translation of this work, by one L.

Article

didactic poetry  

Alessandro Schiesaro

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Didactic poetry, which was not regarded as a separate genre by either Greek or Roman theorists, embraces a number of poetic works (usually in hexameters) which aim to instruct the reader in a particular subject-matter, be it science, philosophy, hunting, farming, love, or some other art or craft. Didactic poems are normally addressed to a particular individual who is seen as the primary object of instruction and acts as a model for the reader. The text generally encourages the reader to identify with the addressee, though exceptions exist (e.g. Perses in *Hesiod's Works and Days). The boundaries and internal evolution of the genre are not always easy to determine. A rather clear distinction can be suggested between an older stage of didactic poetry, from *Hesiod (Works and Days, Theogony) down through the 5th cent. bce (*Parmenides, *Empedocles), which displays a strong concern for overall moral and philosophical instruction, and a later stage, prevalent in Hellenistic times, when didactic poetry preferably deals with specialized and at times obscure topics and appears to become a showcase of poetic dexterity (cf. e.g. *Nicander's Theriaka, on snakes; *Aratus (1)'s Phaenomena, on astronomy).

Article

didascaliae  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
Didascaliae at Rome: production notices, preserved (sometimes incomplete) for Plautus' Stichus and Pseudolus (in manuscript A) and for *Terence's plays (in the manuscripts and *Donatus (2)'s commentary). They give brief details of first performance, games at which performed, presiding magistrates, director, composer, type of musical accompaniment, Greek original, order of play in the author's works, and *consuls of the year; some details of later revivals seem to have been included.

Article

Dido  

Cyril Bailey and Philip Hardie

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman Myth and Religion
Legendary queen of *Carthage, daughter of a Phoenician king of Tyre, called Belus by *Virgil. According to *Timaeus (2), the earliest extant source for her story, her *Phoenician name was Elissa, and the name Dido (‘wanderer’) was given to her by the Libyans. Her husband, called Sychaeus by Virgil, was murdered by her brother *Pygmalion (2), now king of Tyre, and Dido escaped with some followers to Libya where she founded Carthage. In the earlier tradition, in order to escape marriage with a Libyan king (Iarbas in Virgil) Dido built a pyre as though for an offering and leapt into the flames. The story of the encounter of *Aeneas and Dido (chronologically difficult given the traditional dating of Carthage's foundation four centuries after the destruction of Troy) probably appeared in *Naevius' epic Bellum Poenicum. According to *Varro it was Dido's sister Anna who killed herself for love of Aeneas.

Article

differentiae  

R. A. Kaster

Article

Publication History:

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

Distinctions between words of similar meaning (e.g. metus, pavor) formulated by rhetoricians and grammarians to foster precise diction. The drawing of such distinctions can be traced back through the Stoics (see Stoicism) to the early *sophists; Roman interest in the practice appears already in the fragments of *Accius and *Lucilius (1), the *Rhetorica ad Herennium, and *Varro's De lingua latina. Many differentiae were discussed by miscellanists (e.g. Aulus *Gellius), by lexicographers (*Verrius Flaccus, *Nonius Marcellus), and by grammarians. Anonymous compilations were sometimes attributed to great names (Differentiae Suetonii, Diff. Palaemonis, etc. ), and many items were incorporated in glossaries. Alleged differentiae, however, often do not correspond to the actual usage of Latin authors.

Article

Diomedes (3), grammarian, late 4th or early 5th cent. CE  

John F. Moreland

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Late Antiquity
  2. Latin Literature
Grammarian, who wrote an Ars grammatica in three books (ed. Keil, Gramm. Lat. 1. 299–529). His work is of value because, though he rarely mentions his sources, he clearly relied upon earlier grammarians who discussed and illustrated the usages of republican authors. Parallels between his work and that of *Charisius seem to indicate that he borrowed from the latter.

Article

diverbium  

Article

Publication History:

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

Dialogue in a comedy as distinct from *cantica.

Article

Domitius Marsus, Augustan poet  

Edward Courtney

Article

Publication History:

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

An Augustan poet often acknowledged as one of his models by *Martial (who indicates that *Maecenas patronized him, 7. 29. 7–8, 8. 55. 21–4); his work Cicuta comprised a collection of satirical epigrams (of which one on Bavius survives) as venomous as hemlock. He also wrote an epic Amazonis (Mart. 4. 29. 8), which was not admired, and a prose De urbanitate (Quint. Institutio oratoria 6. 3. 102 ff.). Among his fragments are an epigram on the death of *Tibullus and two on *Atia (1), the mother of Augustus.

Article

Domus Aurea  

Larry Ball

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Roman History and Historiography
  3. Roman Material Culture
The Domus Aurea (Golden House) was the opulent residence of the emperor Nero (r. 54–68 ce), set in a vast park in Rome. Ancient literary sources on the Domus Aurea are abundant, albeit not wholly reliable or fair to Nero. Both Suetonius (Ner. 31) and Tacitus (Ann. 15.38–40 and 42) describe the construction. The first phase started in c. 60 ce. This was called the Domus Transitoria, which was interrupted by the great fire of 64 ce. “Domus Aurea” refers to the second phase, after the fire. Given its enormous scale, the Domus Aurea may not have been fully completed in just four years, but at least part of it was finished, most likely the core of the residence, on the Palatine Hill, near the forum, and Nero did move in. The palatine core is largely unknown to us, but the vast parklands created to the east of the forum area include a fine villa on the Esquiline Hill that bespeaks a spectacular new standard both for architectural design in vaulted Roman concrete and in decoration. After Nero, systematic obliteration of the Domus Aurea began with Vespasian (r. 69–79 ce), who sought to erase Nero’s memory.