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[German version] I. Origins and development The PR of literature (Latin recitatio), especially of poetry, represented one of the most important media of transient oral literature in the Roman Imperial Period, contributing enormously to a colourful cultural life. PR existed alongside, and in competition with, declamation (Rhetoric, Declamationes) and theatre (Tragedy, Comedy), of which the texts, not always published and sometimes fluid (improvised e.g. in the artful speeches and the dialogues of the mime), attained in performance the type of publication typ…

[German version] Ancient term (particularly Diom. 3, GL 1,489,14 ff.; on the pattern of the termini cf. [2]) designating the historical drama of the Romans in the Republican Period. Like the historical epic, the genre was introduced in Rome by Naevius [I 1]. A more rarely realized type - cf. Naevius' Lupus (vel Romulus?) - portrayed exemplary figures of early Roman history, while most of the pieces (Naevius' Clastidium, Ennius' Ambracia, Pacuvius' Paulus) were intended to honour patrons posthumously by praising their victories, i.e. they were probably performed at their ludi funebre…

[German version] Rhetorician with philosophical interests, author of  Buntschriftstellerei, a representative of the  Second Sophistic, born about AD 80-90 in Arelate. His life is recounted in Philostr. VS 1,8 and the Suda (also s.Gell. NA 16,3,1 et passim). He was described as a hermaphrodite (Philostr.: ἀνδρόθηλυς, εὐνοῦχος; andróthēlys, eunoûchos; Polemon in Förster Scriptores physiognomonici 1,160,10: sine testiculis natus, cf. [6]). He was trained in Massalia, heard Dio Chrysostom speak in Rome (?) and became an acclaimed speaker. In Ephesus he wa…

[German version] In antiquity the interest in identifying more closely the specific meaning ( proprietas ac differentia; Quint. Inst. 1 pr. 16) of synonyms that are related in their root or different in form but semantically very close ( polliceri/promittere, nullus/nemo, intus/intro, [1. 47]) extends back to Greek philosophy of language (Plato and the Sophists, the Stoa, later Cicero, Nigidius Figulus). In Rome it finds its place in oratory (Cato), rhetoric (Quint. Inst. 9,3,45ff.), jurisprudence and especially among the grammarians …

[German version] Spanish presbyter of aristocratic origin whose Latin epic Evangeliorum libri was written under Constantinus [1] probably after 325 (cf. the epilogue 4,802-812 and Jer. Chron. 232 H. re AD 329; Vir. ill. 84,2; Epist. 70,5); a second, likewise hexametric work regarding the Ordo sacramentorum (Jer. Vir. ill. 84,1) is lost. - The biblical epic to the New Testament, framed by a prologue and an epilogue, describes the story of Christ's life in 4 bks. of Virgilian scope (i.e. an average of about 800 vv.) in the style of a Gospel …

[German version] Author of palliata from the late Republican era, known only from the polemics of Varro (in Non. p. 168,719 L.). Schmidt, Peter L. (Constance) Bibliography Lit.: M. Brožek, De Quintipore Clodio meliori famae restituendo, in: Eos 56, 1966, 115-118.

[German version] According to the myth, the G. is the head of the  Gorgo [1] Medusa killed by Perseus which could still turn people into stone after Medusa's death. Perseus finally handed it to Athena, who attached it to her   aegis . The significance of the G. as an object of representation, however, far exceeds the myth of Perseus and has complex older foundations. It belongs to the group of grotesque masks whose polyvalent functions go far beyond those of causing terror and deterring evil. Even though there are cer…

[German version] Early 3rd-cent. author of a commentary on Horace for use in schools (in the form of marginal glosses), perhaps from Africa (before Iulius [IV 19] Romanus, cf. Charisius p. 285,10 ff. Barwick); a short biography precedes the text. The function of the work forced P. to dispense with textual variants; the source citations may have been mediated by Helenius Acron's scholarly commentary. P. himself was not very interested in archaisms; instead he emphasized the contemporary distance fr…

[German version] Juvenal, the last outstanding satirical poet of Rome, probably from Campanian Aquinum (cf. Juv. Sat. 3,318ff. and ILS 2926 = CIL 10,5382), contemporary of Tacitus; from Sat. 13,16f. and 15,27f., [1] deduces that he was born in AD 67. The silence of his poems concerning autobiographical detail - in contrast to  Horatius - and the fictitious nature of the vitae (no. 1 Jahn), which were not compiled until late antiquity, make any reconstruction of the details of his life circumstances impossible. The statement that I. was active as a reciter…

[German version] Two different historiographic texts dating from late antiquity, which H. Valesius first edited in 1636 from what is today called the Cod. Berol. Phill. 1885 (9th cent.). The first excerpt (a), entitled Origo Constantini imperatoris, comes from a collection of biographies of emperors (mid 4th cent.) and outlines the life of emperor Constantine [1] I from the year 305. The second (b), an excerpt ex libris chronicorum (6th cent.), covers the era from 474 to 526, in particular the rule of Theoderic; the tradition of the text is contributed to by t…

[German version] Practice speeches, representing the ultimate stage of education in rhetoric. They treated (mostly fictitious) model cases (Suet. Gram. 25,9) with the aim of preparing pupils for the pugna forensis (Quint. Inst. 5,12,17), and were practised in schools of rhetoric modelled after the Greek pattern; the name is of later date (Cic. Tusc. 1,7; Sen. Controv. 1, pr. 12). Despite criticisms of excesses, Quintilian gives a more positive assessment of their pedagogical utility than, say, Messalla (Tac. Dial. 35), who t…

[German version] Revisor of the collection of exempla by  Valerius Maximus for rhetoric instruction, probably from the 4th cent. AD (based on linguistic arguments [1]). While the original organization was maintained, there were stylistic revisions and additions - partially from Cicero (cf. 7,3; 9,24 etc.). A more complete copy of the excerpt, which has survived in the Codex unicus ( Vaticanus Latinus 1321, s. XIV) only up to Val. Max. 3,2,7, was used still by Landolfus Sagax ( c.1000). Schmidt, Peter L. (Constance) Bibliography 1 F. Buecheler, Kleine Schriften 3, 1930, 331-335 (11906…

[German version] (‘reader’). Especially the letters of Pliny the Younger illustrate the custom of culturally enriching the mealtimes with - next to comoedi and lyristae (Plin. Ep. 1,15,2; 9,17,3; 36,4) - lectores (Nep. Att. 14,1; Gell. NA 3,19,1: servus assistens mensae eius - sc. Favorini - legere inceptabat ‘a slave, who stood by his - Favorinus' - table, began to read’), and its exceptional use as preparation for excerption, as in the case of Pliny the Older in Plin. Ep. 3,5,11f. ( super hanc - sc. cenam - liber legebatur, adnotabatur ‘a book was read at the table, Pliny took note…

[German version] ‘The Mosquito’, Lat. short epic poem ( Epic), dedicated to Octavian as a Virgilian pseudepigraphon (v.1) and received as an early work by Virgil since Lucan [1. 157ff.; 6] Suetonius' Life of Virgil; it is, however, more likely to come from the Tiberian period [1. 57ff.; 7]: a mosquito stings a sleeping shepherd and thus saves him from a snake but is killed by him; it recounts the tale to him in a dream from the underworld and receives a proper burial in appreciation. Bucolic setting and epic p…

[German version] Roman grammarian, probably of the 2nd cent. AD, whose De verbis sordidis (‘On Vulgar Expressions’) is cited appreciatively by Gell. NA 20,11. Schmidt, Peter L. (Constance)

[German version] (Φλέγων; Phlégōn). P. Aelius, of Tralleis [2] in Asia Minor, a writer of miscellanies. A freedman of the emperor Hadrianus [II], P. belonged to the latter's court and possibly administered his itinerare [II.] (cf. [7]); d. after AD 137, the terminus post quem of work (6), below. According to the list in the Suda (FGrH 257 T 1) P.’s œuvre included i.a. topographical-heortological writings: (1) Perì Olympioníkōn/'On Olympic Victors' (2 bks.); (2) Ékphrasis Sikelías/'Description of Sicily' (3 bks.); (3) 'On Roman Festivals' (3 bks.) and a topography of Ro…

[German version] [1] Died after AD 90, known from a funerary epigram by Martialis [1] Known from a funerary epigram by Martialis [1] (6,18), who calls him a friend of his friend Terentius Priscus; therefore, the death of S. must have occurred around AD 90, the date of origin of the 6th book of epigrams by Martialis. Schmidt, Peter L. (Constance) [German version] [2] see Licinius [II 6] see Licinius [II 6]

[German version] Modern term for an alphabetical Latin encyclopaedia from the late 8th cent. covering Linguistic notes to explanations of terms, the most comprehensive and most important educational aid of the Carolingian epoch; prototypes are the MSS Parisinus Lat. 11529/30 and Cambrai 693 (both late 8th cent.; cf. [4]). Concerning the origin of the glossary ( Glossography) in the surroundings of Corby, in Tours, and in the Carolingian court library, and concerning Alcuin as terminus post quem, …

[German version] Epic poet of the Augustan period, mentioned by Ov. Pont. 4,16,17f. who praises him: as a counterpart of the Aeneis, his epic dealt with the settlement of the Trojan Antenor [1] in northern Italy. The identification with Valerius Largus, the prosecutor of the elegist Gallus, cannot be attested. Schmidt, Peter L. (Constance) Bibliography Bardon, 2,66f.

[German version] Probably somewhat older than  Terentius Scaurus and  Sulpicius Apollinaris; with his alphabetical lexicalization of linguistic-antiquarian material under linguistic aspects, he produced a work, which in his archaizing tendency was characteristic of the Hadrianic era ( Stromateis sive Commentaria lectionum antiquarum, probably 20 bks.). The material was taken from republican authors up to Virgil and was likely substantially based on  Probus. As famous as it was disputed, it also exposed -- according to Gell. NA 2,16,5ff…