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[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] A portrayal of the Roman Imperial period in short biographies, to be dated between AD 337 and 361, the date of the first user (Aurelius Victor), and extending to the death of Constantinus. The establishment of its date by A. Enmann [1], who explains the relationship (linguistic and structural properties, factual errors) of Victor, Eutropius, the Historia Augusta and the Epitome de Caesaribus (Aurelius Victor) has, in contrast to the Epitome of Livy, withstood the test of time. The literary standard appears to have been higher than that of t…

[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] Versified handbook of popular ethics from the 3rd cent. (cf. Carm. epigr. 1988, 51; [1. LXXIII]); widely known by the end of the 4th cent. at the latest. The text, of which the Dutch philologist M. Boas made a lifelong study [1. LXXXff.], exists in version Y (or V) with 306 vv. and in a more extensive version F, with 331 vv. but altered by interpolations and recasting, aside from the Barberini recension [1. XXXVIff.]. The title of Y runs Marci Catonis ad filium libri, where F (Codex Verona cap. 163) has Dicta M. Catonis ad filium suum [1. LXVff.; 2. 30ff.], since Erasmus …

[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] Author of a commentary - based, among others, on Hermagoras [1] (of Temnus) - on Cicero's rhetorical works, from which Marius [II 21] Victorinus quotes, in part polemically [1. 173, l. 25ff.; 299, l.13ff.]. It is also used in the rhetoric of Consultus Fortunatianus [1. p. 98,26f.] and Sulpicius Victor [1. p. 339,2ff.; 340,14-341,28], as well as (according to title and subscription) of Iulius [IV 24] Victor, works which in part still belong to the 4th cent. Since Victorinus seems t…

[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] Roman rhetor of the Augustan-Tiberian period. His contemporary, Seneca the Elder, characterizes him whenever the opportunity arises with negative epithets: obscenitas, ‘vulgarity’ (Sen. Contr. 1,2,21); stultitia, ‘stupidity’ (1,4,12); ‘fatuity’ (7,5,10); ‘buffoonery’ (7,2,14); ‘empty magniloquence’ (9,2,27); insania, ‘madness’ (Sen. Suas. 2,16). Schmidt, Peter L. (Constance) Bibliography J. Fairweather, Seneca the Elder, 1981, passim (Index 399).

[German version] Latin comedy by an author of the early 5th cent. AD who came from Gaul, if the addressee Rutilius is identical with Rutilius Namatianus, which is also in keeping with the latent anti-Christian tendency of the play. Intended for recitation at a banquet, the Querolus , which is written in rhythmic prose, implies an understanding of Plautus and Terentius as prose authors. The Plautine comedy Aulularia, to which the prologue alludes, is the basis of the Querolus down to the same characters and names. The episode of the hidden treasure, however, is modelled qu…

[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…

Roman writer of tragedies in the Republican period, of Oscan-Messapian origin, nephew of Ennius (Plin. HN 35,19). [German version] A. Biography Born in 220 BC (cf. Cic. Brut. 229) in Brundisium (Jer. Chron. p. 142 H.), died shortly before 130 BC in Tarentum. Apart from this chronology, which comes from Accius' Didascalica and Varro’s De poetis [18. 48f., 53, 62] and has been preserved in works from Sueton’s De poetis [17. 36] to Jerome, there are traces of another tradition, which was perhaps shaped by Cornelius Nepos’ [2] Chronica. [2. 8, 5], which P.took up a generation later (…

[German version] From Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli), magistrate and patron of Puteoli and Neapolis [2], landowner in Tibur (modern Tivoli), Puteoli (cf. ILS 5798) and Tarentum (Taras). His wife was called Polla; their daughter was the wife of Iulius Menecrates; he is congratulated on the birth of his third grandchild by Statius (Silv. 4,8; for a son of P. cf. Stat. Silv. 4,8,12). P., himself a poet, was en Campanie, le protecteur attitré ([1. 3235]) of the poet Statius, who described his villa at Surrentum (Silv. 2,2) and a statue of Hercules dedicated on its shores (S…

[German version] Teacher of rhetoric in late antiquity, author of an alphabetical phraseology of model idiomatic expressions published in 395 ( Exempla elocutionum). The excerpts from  Vergilius and  Sallustius,  Terentius and  Cicero form a quartet -- as a classicist stretto of the canon -- which from time to time in late antiquity was considered to be the quintessence of pagan culture ( quadriga Messii). There is evidence of only two Carolingian codices; a Bobiensis text discovered in 1493 and copied by G. Galbiati (today in Naples IV.A.11) was preserved. Schmidt, Peter L. (Const…

[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] 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] Latin textbook of rhetoric from the late Republican Period (dating to c. 50 BC compellingly argued in [5. 65 ff.]). It deals in 4 books with the canon of the officia oratoris ( officium [7]). Its source was a Latin textbook also used by Cicero for his De inventione ([4; 6];  [7. 271 ff.] newly adopted the old idea that Cicero used the Rhetorica ad Herennium). Attributed to Cicero from Late Antiquity on, the work is today - although with insufficient proof - often attributed to an author by the name of Cornificius named by Quint. Inst. 3,1,21 …

[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] The last important Latin grammarian, b. in Mauretanian Caesarea [1], pupil of Theoctistus, worked as professor of grammar at Constantinople into the first decades of the 6th cent. AD. On his circle, cf. [5]-[8]. His main work, the (1) Institutio de arte grammatica ('Textbook of Grammar'), consists (after an introductory epistle) of 18 books (1-7: De nomine; 8-10: De verbo; 11: De participio; 12-13 De pronomine; 14: De praepositione; 15: De adverbio et interiectione; 16: De coniunctione; 17-18: De constructione = 'syntax') and seems to have been written in se…

[German version] A. Life Roman naturalist and grammarian of the Late Republic. Remarks by his friend and contemporary Cicero and references in a biography of Suetonius ([9]; testimonials in [1. 158-161; 5. 9-36]) illuminate the last 20 years of his life in particular. Born around 100 BC from a plebeian family, he is first encountered in 63 as a senator and supporter of Cicero's against the Catilinarians (Catilina; Cic. Sull. 41f.; Fam. 4,13,2); praetor in 58 (Cic. Ad Q. Fr. 1,2,16). In July 51 he me…

[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…