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Name of a Roman patrician family, probably originally from Cameria (hence the cognomen Camerinus); documented in the fasti from c. 500 BC. The otherwise rare praenomen Servius appears comparatively frequently and at times is even used in place of the nomen gentile (Tac. Hist. 2,48; Plut. Galba 3,1). The number of cognomina within the gens is high, but it has been impossible to identify clear branches. The link between the S. from the 3rd to the 2nd and 1st cent. BC is unclear. In the 2nd cent. BC, the most important branch of the family was that of…

[German version] Paulus (?) O. came from Bracara (modern-day Braga/Portugal) and went to Africa in AD 414, where he met Augustine. On Augustine's behalf, he journeyed to Bethlehem, to Hieronymus. In 415 he opposed Pelagius at the Synod of Jerusalem. Evidence of O.'s opposition to dissenting tendencies within the Church is also found in his Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum, sent as a letter to Augustine, to which Augustine responded with his treatise Ad Orosium contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas (Origen; Priscilla). O.'s Liber apologeticus, in whic…

[German version] Probably identical with the Silvius mentioned in the Vita Hilarii (14). In AD 448/9, P. wrote a chronographical composition entitled Laterculus ('list'), a compilation, as he notes in his preface, of earlier works of the same name. These are lost but the chronographer of AD 354 (Filocalus) may approximate them, esp. since the latter was well known to P. [1]. P.’s intention is to make these matters better available to less educated people. In addition, he purged remnants of the non-Christian calendar …

[German version] ( excursus). Interruption as a form of expansion and at the same time linguistic embellishment ( ornatus) in narrative texts; also with the function of providing evidence of a statement in the main text: Polybius (18,35) uses an excursus about Aemilius Paulus as evidence of the incorruptability of the generals of Ancient Rome; at the same time he also uses this excursus to provide a contrast to Titus Flaminius, who is portrayed in the main text. In rhetorical terminology, the excursus, generally synonymous with egressio, excursio, digressus/io and παρέκβασις/ parékbas…

[German version] Sub-genre encompassing works which have as their theme the literary stylization of the deaths of famous men, generally the victims of tyranny: the stoically stylized deaths of Cato (Plut. Cato min. 68ff.) and Seneca (Tac. Ann. 15,60ff.) reflect this influence. The genre also covers the thematization of the deaths of rulers or generals. The name derives from Plin. Ep. 8,12,4, where he writes of the exitus illustrium virorum of one Titinius Capito. Cicero refers to rhetoric as context when he compiles Exitus clarissimorum virorum nostrae civitatis as exempla consolati…

[German version] [1] Roman cognomen Roman cognomen ('calf bone'), recorded for L. Cornelius [I 56] Lentulus S. etc. Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum) Bibliography Degrassi, FCIR, 269  Kajanto, Cognomina, 63; 226. [German version] [2] Aemilius S. Author of a work of history In a gloss on Vell. Pat. 1,6,6, an excerpt from a work by a certain Aemilius S. with the title De annis populi Romani is cited as a supplement to Velleius' presentation of the genealogical derivation of the Macedonian royal house. The excerpt contains an account of the successive five empires…

[German version] I. Greek (Γρηγόριος; Grēgórios) [German version] [I 1] Thaumaturgus Lawyer and theologian, 3rd cent. AD G. was born between AD 210 and 213, as the son of a wealthy pagan family in Neocaesarea/ Pontus (modern Niksar), probably under the name of Theodorus. In 232/3 (or 239), after a thorough elementary education G. actually wanted to study law in  Berytus/Beirut but before this in  Caesarea [2] (Palestine) got to know  Origen who taught there and then studied under his supervision the ‘Christian s…

[German version] I. Genre s. Rhetoric Eigler, Ulrich (Zürich) [German version] II. Sub-genre Direct speech can be found in most genres of ancient literature, esp. in epic and historiography. Homer already made use of the possibilities of 'fictitious orality' [1-4] and imbedded it in the narrated context. There, direct speech is used to characterize persons as well as to dramatize, to elevate the style and, at times, to structure the narrated material. In historiography, it occasionally reveals the author's o…

[German version] ( c. 390-after 455), a layman of ascetic temperament from Aquitania, very closely associated with the Christian monastic movement of southern Gaul (cf. Monasticism, C2). His own conversio ('conversion') probably took place in the first third of the 5th cent. The Poema ad uxorem ( A Poem to his wife) ascribed to P. may belong to this context [1]; its 74 vv. link a description of the vanity of the world with the exhortation to renounce it. P.'s commitment to the doctrine of Augustine (Augustinus) in defiance of Pelagian tendencies…

Name of an old patrician family, which was said to have immigrated to Rome under King T. Tatius with V. [I 10] (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2,46). The name, derived from the old personal name Valesus/ Valerus, was originally Valesios (cf. V. [I 7]; CIL XII p. 298g: Valesies; Fest. 22; Varro, Rerum divinarum fr. 66 Cardauns [4; 5]); the censor App. Claudius [I 2] introduced the new spelling in 312 BC (cf. Dig. 1,2, 2,36). Because in Antiquity the name was derived (etymologically correctly) from valere, 'to be strong', it was considered to be a good omen ( boni ominis nomen, Cic. Div. 1,102; Cic. Sca…

[German version] [1] Roman cognomen, epithet of Q. Caecilius Metellus N. and his son Roman cognomen (‘grandson’) to distinguish a boy from his father and grandfather of the same name. Epithet of Q. Caecilius [I 28] Metellus N. and his homonymous son [I 29]. Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum) Bibliography Kajanto, Cognomina, 79; 304. [German version] [2] Cornelius N. Biographer and historian, 1st cent. BC ( c. 100-24 BC) represents the dynamic of intellectual culture in Rome during the 1st cent. BC. He hailed from the Transpadana region and was an equestrian. N. …

[German version] An excerpt written by an anonymous author, given the title of libellus de genere Cassiodororum, a writing of  Cassiodorus created in Italy, perhaps in the last governmental years of Theoderic. The dating of both is disputed. The writing, published in 1877, was named after A. Holder, who had discovered the excerpt in a Reichenau MS (MS Aug. 106 fol. 53v) in Karlsruhe ([4]; further textual witnesses: [5]). The work, combining  biography,  autobiography and genealogical table, contains important n…

('winner, victor(ious)'). [German version] [1] Roman cognomen Roman cognomen, only attested from the mid-1st cent. BC (Cic. Att. 14,14,2), but from then one of the commonest bynames, and a name of choice. Elvers, Karl-Ludwig (Bochum) Bibliography Kajanto, Cognomina, 57; 72; 89; 96; 98; 278 H. Solin, Die stadtrömische Sklavennamen, 1996, 100 f. [German version] [2] Roman epithet for gods (Roman epithet for gods), see Hercules; Iuppiter; Mars; Tibur. Groß-Albenhausen, Kirsten (Frankfurt/Main) [German version] [3] Imperial title Roman Imperial title from the early 4th c…

[German version] ( c. AD 920-972) was an extremely many-sided figure [1]. He came from a Lombard family and was made bishop of Cremona by Otto I in 961. L. served the emperor, e.g. on missions to Constantinople. He was highly educated and even had a command of Greek [2]. L. wrote the Relatio de legatione Constantinopolitana (‘Report on the Mission to Constantinople’), a valuable work for cultural history, and, in the Liber antapodóseōs (‘Book of Retribution’, 6 bks.), a description of events from 888 to 950. He also wrote the so-called Historia Ottonis, which described events from 960 t…

[German version] [1] see Marcius Festus see  Marcius Festus Portmann, Werner (Berlin) [German version] [2] Iulius F. Hymetius Rom. official, proconsul Africae AD 366-368 served around AD 350 as corrector Tusciae et Umbriae, later as praetor urbanus and consularis Campaniae cum Samnio (before 355). In 362, he became vicarius urbis Romae (Cod. Theod. 11,30,29), and from 366 to 368 proconsul Africae (Cod. Theod. 9,19,3; his entire career: ILS 1256). As proconsul, he helped to alleviate a famine in Carthage, and in this context was sentenced to a fine as a result of b…

(Ἱερώνυμος; Hierṓnymos). [German version] [1] Athenian, commander of the Persian fleet 395 BC, politician Athenian, one of  Conon's representatives in his command over the Persian fleet in 395 BC (Diod. Sic. 14,81,4), campaigned for more expansive politics in Athens (Aristoph. Eccl. 201; Ephor. FGrH 70 F 73). Schmitz, Winfried (Bielefeld) Bibliography Traill, PAA 533930. [German version] [2] Statesman in Megalopolis around 350 BC Oecist from Mainalus in Arcadia at the founding of Megalopolis ( Megale Polis) in 370 BC (Paus. 8,27,2), was one of the leading s…

[German version] The so-called OGR refers to a Latin text divided into 23 chapters, briefly summarizing the prehistory of the founding of Rome from Saturnus to Romulus. It thus traces over generations the divine and human descent of the kings of Alba Longa. The OGR probably ultimately goes back to a chapter from Verrius Flaccus' Res memoria dignae and underwent numerous revisions and epitomizations until late antiquity [3]. Its author is unknown. We owe the transmission of the OGR to an otherwise unknown 4th-cent. AD editor, who included it in a corpus with the anonymous De viris illustr…

[German version] Latin collection of  biographies of important authors with the exclusion of statesmen and commanders (exception: Aurelius  Victor), initially as an introduction to a work. Its origins can be found in the peripatetic and Alexandrian literature business (e.g. Neanthes; important:  Callimachus' Pínakes). It is this tradition that influenced the biographical collections of  Varro, of  Hyginus, and especially of  Suetonius' De viris illustribus. The genre experiences a new zenith with Jerome ( Hieronymus), who in AD 392/3, following Suetonius …

I. Ancient Orient [German version] A. Introduction Judged by the principles of modern historiography, this discipline did not exist in the Ancient Orient. Nevertheless, the past has been treated in the literature in various ways, which indicates that history was an essential source of political and religious identity in the Ancient Orient. Frahm, Eckart (Heidelberg) [German version] B. Mesopotamia Records with a historical orientation do not emerge until the middle of the 3rd millennium BC in the form of royal inscriptions of Lagaš. Deeds are reported f…

[German version] I. Greek (Μαρκελλῖνος; Markellînos). [German version] [I 1] Greek author of a treatise on pulses, 2nd cent. AD?, [1] Greek author of a treatise on pulses. His reference to followers of Archigenes suggests the late 1st or 2nd cent. AD as the earliest date of its composition. A more precise dating would be possible if he were the author of a recipe quoted by Galen (De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos 7,5 = 13,90 K.) from Andromachus [5] the Younger, but the identification is uncertain. M.'s …