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Roman plebeian family name, attested from the 4th cent. BC onwards (ThlL, Onom. 3,217-227). The most important families into the 1st cent. AD are the Ahenobarbi [I 1-8] and the Calvini [I 9-12]. Identification of some members of the family in the 2nd cent. BC is uncertain. I. Republican period [German version] Domitii Ahenobarbi Family history in Suet. Ner. 1-5. Legend of the origin of the cognomen (ThlL, 1,135; in manuscript also Aenobarbus) ‘Red-beard’, ‘Bronze-beard’ in Suet. Ner. 1,1; Plut. Aem. 25. The family was probably accorded patrician st…

[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] [1] O. maior Augustus' half sister She was the child from C. Octavius’[I 2] first marriage to Ancharia and was therefore the half sister of Octavian who later became Augustus. She was married to Sex. Appuleius [II 2]; their son was Sex. Appuleius [II 3]. O. is honoured as the sister of Augustus and the mother of Sex. Appuleius on an inscription from Pergamon (ILS 8783 = IGR 4, 323). Fischer, Klaus (Bonn) Bibliography PIR2 O 65  M.W. Singer, The Problem of Octavia Minor and Octavia Maior, in: TAPhA, 79, 1948, 270-271. [German version] [2] O. minor Older sister of Augustus Born …

[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…

Name of a Roman plebeian family, who probably came from Latium and was accepted into Roman nobility when Latium was integrated politically in 338 BC ( Latin law). The most important branches were first the Salinatores, then the Drusi (on the cognomen see Drusus). The third wife of Augustus and mother of the emperor Tiberius, Livia [2] Drusilla came from this branch (Stemma see Augustus; the family history of the branch is in Suet. Tib. 3). The line of the Salinatores was continued in the late Republic by the Livii Ocellae, who i.a. produced Livia Ocella, the stepmother of the emperor Galba [2]. E…

[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] I. Greek (Φαῖδρος; Phaîdros). [German version] [I 1] 5th cent. BC Son of Pythocles, from the Attic deme of Myrrhinus, born probably c. 450 BC. Accused of participation in the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteria and the mutilatation of the herms, P. went into exile in 415 BC. His property was confiscated (And. 1,15; ML 79,112-115). By 404 BC at the latest, he had returned to Athens; he subsequently married a cousin (Lys. 19,15). Died before 393. Participant in the meeting in Plato's Protagoras (315c), interlocutor of Socrates in Plato's Phaedrus and first speaker in his Sy…

[German version] [1] Chariot race victor M. of Thebes, son of Telesiades, addressee of Pind. I., 3 and 4 ( Pindarus). Two victories are mentioned, one in the horse or chariot race at Nemea (ibid. 3,9-13), the other in the pankration (ibid. 4,44). The two metrically identical poems are not treated separately in all MSS. The race victory was probably later, I. 3 being appended to the longer poem I. 4 in regard to a single celebration [1. 202-203]. M.'s father belonged to the family of the Cleonymidae, h…

[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] [1] Society A collegium is a group of people coming together for religious, professional and social reasons. The legal basis for the collegia is set out in the Law of Twelve Tables (8,27 = Gaius Dig. 47,22,4): his (sodalibus) potestatem facit lex, pactionem quam velint sibi ferre, dum ne quid ex publica lege corrumpant; sed haec lex videtur ex lege Solonis translata esse. In terms of their internal organization, the collegium followed the model of the civic municipalities with magistrates, a council and plebs. The financial assets of the collegium included the income …

[German version] [1] Imperator Caesar M. Aurelius Probus Augustus Roman emperor AD 276-282 Roman emperor 276-282 AD. Born on 19 August 232 AD in Sirmium; the information about his father in SHA Probus 3,2 and in [Aur. Vict.] epit. Caes. 37,1 is probably fictitious. P.'s career prior to his elevation to emperor in the East in the summer of 276 (Zos. 1,64) (in SHA Probus he is confused with a dux Tenagino P.) is unknown. During his six-year reign ( cos. I-III 277-279, cos. IV 281, cos. V 282) he fought first on the Rhine against the Alamanni, then against the Franci, Burgundiones an…

[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…

Plebeian nomen gentile of Etruscan origin, more frequent references only towards the end of the Republic. I. Republican period [German version] [I 1] L. Military tribune 258 BC Military tribune during the First Punic War, in 258 BC he secured the retreat of consul A. Atilius [I 14] Calatinus (Claudius Quadrigarius fr. 42 HRR) near Camarina. All 400 legionaries of L. were killed, he himself survived badly wounded, but nevertheless was celebrated as ‘The Leonidas of Rome’ (Gell. NA 3,7,21). Other war heroes mentioned are: Q.…

Roman family name, maybe originally Samnitic (cf. Schulze, 187f.), epigraphically also attested from central Italy. Name bearers in Rome are known from the 2nd cent. BC onwards. Egnat(i)us is uniquely also transmitted as a praenomen (Val. Max. 6,3,9. Plin. HN 14,89; [1]). I. Republican period [German version] [I 1] E., Gellius Leader of the Samnites in the 3rd Samnite War from 296 BC on Leader of the Samnites in the 3rd Samnite War, who brought about a coalition between the Samnites, Etruscans, Umbrians and Celts against Rome in 296. Their united army was de…