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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 was involved in a protracted quarrel with  Polemon and later temporarily lost Hadrian's favour. His treatise Περὶ φυγῆς ( Perì phygês), with local reference to Chios, indicates banishment, but since this is otherwise unknown in the remainder of the biographic tradition, it may have been a fiction [8]. Reconciled with the emperor, he lived (as an …

Name of probably the most important Roman plebeian family. The similarity to the Etruscan name lecne and the links between the gens and Etruria in historical times (L. [I 7]) suggest an origin in that region [1. 108, n. 3]; the name may, however, also be of Latin origin ( Licinus). The spelling with a double ‘n’ occurs not only in the Greek form Λικίννιος ( Likínnios), but also in Latin inscriptions [1. 108, n. 1]. In the annalistic historical records dealing with the early Republic, members of the family appear among the earliest people's tribunes, reaching their polit…

[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 ( …

[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 …

Roman cognomen (‘blond’, ‘radiant’, with ablaut, related to flavus [1]), in the Republican period epithet of C. Aquilius [I 11] F. and L. Mestius F. Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum) [German version] [1] P. Annius F. Lat. poet and writer, 1st/2nd cent. AD Under the cognomen Florus (in conjunction with the family name Annius or Ann(a)eus and the first name P. or L.) four works or groups of works are known: 1. the introduction to a dialogue Vergilius orator an poeta…

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[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 …

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[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…

Name of a Plebeian family (connection with the Campanian city of Pompeii is unclear). The family acquired political significance with P. [I 1]; he is the origin of the Rufi branch. With P. [I 8] a related branch attained consulship and with his son Cn. P. [I 3] Magnus supplied the most significant member of the gens. Both lineages continue until the early Imperial period (family trees: [1; 2; 3]). I. Republican…

Name of a Latin family which belonged to the upper class in Puteoli (Schulze 480). I. Republican Period [German version] …

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 …

[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…

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[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 …

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…

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