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Article

Annaeus Cornutus, Lucius  

Leofranc Holford-Strevens

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Philosophy
Annaeus Cornutus, Lucius, Stoic philosopher, grammarian, and rhetorician whose pupils included *Lucan and *Persius (who honoured him in Sat. 5, and whose Satires he reportedly revised after the poet's death); exiled by Nero. His Life, now lost, was the last in Diog. Laert. 7; the description Λεπτίτης (Suda), denoting a citizen (not merely native) of *Lepcis Magna, refutes the common supposition that he was the younger Seneca's freedman, though patronage remains plausible. His one extant work (conjectural title Ἐπιδρομὴ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν θεολογίαν παραδεδομένων, ‘Summary of the Traditions concerning Greek Mythology’), addressed to a young child, uses *etymology and also *allegory to derive philosophical insights from divine names and myths. Lost writings included a critique of Aristotle's Categories, reviewing a previous Stoic treatment of the subject; a treatise on spelling, favouring contemporary usage over ancient and balancing the claims of etymology and pronunciation; and commentaries on Virgil (one addressed to *Silius Italicus).

Article

Aristius Fuscus, Marcus  

Peter G. M. Brown

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Philosophy
Friend of *Horace and addressee of Ode 1. 22 and Epist. 1. 10; also mentioned in Sat. 1. 9. 60 ff. and 1. 10. 83. Said by *Pomponius Porphyrio to have been an eminent *grammaticus and an author of comedies, he may have had Stoic leanings, see stoicism (S.

Article

Aurelius, Marcus, Meditations  

R. B. Rutherford

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
30 July 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Philosophy
Aurelius, Marcus, Marcus is most famous for a work his subjects never saw, the intimate notebook in which he recorded (in Greek) his own reflections on human life and the ways of the gods, perhaps before retiring at night. The title Meditations is purely modern: τά εἰς ἑαυτὸν (‘to himself’), found in our MSS, may not go back to the author, but is surely accurate. Internal evidence suggests that he was past his prime when he wrote (2. 2, and other references to his age or imminent death), and that at least parts were composed during his lengthy campaigns against the German tribes. It seems to have survived almost by accident; it was unknown to the writers of his time and for long afterwards, but seems to have surfaced in the 4th cent. (Them., Or. 6. 81c, not a certain allusion). In general the closest analogies for the thought are with *Epictetus, but Marcus is interested less in sustained exposition.

Article

Boethius, Musical writings  

Andrew Barker

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Philosophy
Boethius' Institutio musica, mainly paraphrased from Greek sources, deploys Pythagorean harmonics (see pythagoras), within the quadrivium, to promote understanding of music's extraordinary powers. Books 1–3 (introduction and mathematical demonstrations) and possibly book 4 (divisions of the monochord, modes) derive from a lost work by *Nicomachus (3). Book 5 (incomplete) renders *Ptolemy (4)Harmonica 1, very selectively: perhaps Harmonica 2–3 were intended to follow.

Article

education, Roman  

J. V. Muir

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Philosophy
  3. Roman History and Historiography
  4. Roman Law
There is very little reliable evidence bearing upon formal education in the early period. Education was then certainly centred on the family and was probably based upon apprenticeship supervised by the father—in poorer homes an apprenticeship to agriculture or trade, in more aristocratic circles to military service and public life (what later became known as the tirocinium militiae and the tirocinium fori). The authority of the father, legalized as *patria potestas, was absolute and could only in theory be questioned by the censors. The Roman mother had a more restricted, domestic role but she too was traditionally expected to take a personal, central responsibility and to set a strong moral example (see motherhood, Roman). It is not certain when reading and writing became a serious part of Roman education: the 7th-cent. bce ivory writing-tablet with inscribed alphabet found at Marsiliana d'Albegna and 6th-cent. bucchero (pottery) models of wooden writing-tablets (tabulae ansatae) from Etruria may imply that *literacy was then already making some headway.

Article

friendship, ritualized  

G. Herman

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
22 December 2015
Subjects:
  1. Ancient Economy
  2. Greek Literature
  3. Latin Literature
  4. Philosophy
Friendship, ritualized (or guest-friendship), a bond of trust, imitating kinship and reinforced by rituals, generating affection and obligations between individuals belonging to separate social units. In Greek sources this bond is called xenia, xeiniē, and xeineiē; in Latin, hospitium. The individuals joined by the bond (usually men of approximately equal social status) are said to be each other's xenos or hospes. As the same terms designated guest-host relationships, xenia and hospitium have sometimes been interpreted in modern research as a form of hospitality. Xenia, hospitium, and hospitality do overlap to some extent but the former relationships display a series of additional features which assimilate them into the wider category called in social studies ritualized personal relationships, or pseudo-kinship. The analogy with kinship did not escape the notice of the ancients themselves. According to the *AristotelianMagna Moralia, xenia was the strongest of all the relationships involving affection (philia) (2.

Article

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus)  

Peta G. Fowler and Don P. Fowler

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Latin Literature
  2. Philosophy
Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus), Epicurean poet (see epicurus), author of the De rerum natura (DRN), ‘On the Nature of Things’ (c.94–55 or 51 bce ?). We know less about the life of Lucretius than about almost any other Latin poet. His full name is given only in the manuscripts of his work (pun on Carus, 1. 730 ?), and nothing is known of his place of birth or social status, though both have been the subject of much speculation. *Jerome's version of the Chronicle of *Eusebius puts his birth in 94 bce, and says that he was 44 when he died, but the *DonatusLife of Virgil puts his death in 55, on the same day that Virgil assumed the *togavirilis (6, though there are textual problems), and a note in a 10th-cent. manuscript (H. Usener Kl. Schr. (1913), 156, 196–9) says that he was born 27 years before Virgil, i.

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

Stertinius, Stoic writer  

Edward Courtney

Article

Publication History:

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

A Stoic writer (See stoicism), alleged source in Hor.Sat. 2. 3 (see l. 296) said by [Helenius Acro] (on Hor.Epist. 1. 12. 20) to have written 220 books; the implication that these were in verse is not credible.

Article

Volumnius, Publius  

M. T. Griffin

Article

Publication History:

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

A philosopher who accompanied *Brutus in his campaign against the triumvirs (see triumviri). He recorded, perhaps in a biography, prodigies (see portents) which preceded Brutus' last battle (Plut. Brut.48).