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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.

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).

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.

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.