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Consolatio
:''See also the Catharist Consolamentum The ''Consolatio'' or consolatory oration is a type of ceremonial oratory, typically used rhetorically to comfort mourners at funerals. It was one of the most popular classical rhetoric topics,Ernst Robert Curtius, ''European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages'', trans. W.R. Trask (Princeton: 1953) section 5.1 ''Topics of Consolatory Oratory'' pp.80-2 Petrie, Graham (1970)A Rhetorical Topic in 'Tristram Shandy' " ''Modern Language Review'', Vol. 65, No. 2, April 1970, p. 262 and received new impetus under Renaissance humanism. ''Consolatio'' as a literary genre The ''Consolatio'' literary tradition ("consolation" in English) is a broad literary genre encompassing various forms of consolatory speeches, essays, poems, and personal letters. This literary tradition flourished in antiquity, and its origins date back to the fifth century BC. Orators in antiquity often delivered consolatory speeches to comfort mourners at funerals or in cases of ...
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Seneca's Consolations
Seneca's Consolations refers to Seneca’s three consolatory works, ''De Consolatione ad Marciam'', ''De Consolatione ad Polybium'', ''De Consolatione ad Helviam'', written around 40–45 AD. Context of the Consolations Seneca’s three consolatory works, ''De Consolatione ad Marciam'', ''De Consolatione ad Polybium'', and ''De Consolatione ad Helviam Matrem'', were all constructed in the ''Consolatio'' Literary Tradition, dating back to the fifth century BC. The Consolations are part of Seneca’s Treatises, commonly called Dialogues, or Dialogi.Costa, C.D.N. ''Seneca: Four Dialogues''. Aris and Phillips Ltd. England 1994 These works clearly contain essential principles of Seneca’s Stoic teachings. Although they are personal addresses of Seneca, these works are written more like essays than personal letters of consolation. Furthermore, although each essay is particular in its address of consolation, the tone of these works is notably detached. Seneca seems more preoccupied ...
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Consolation Of Philosophy
''On the Consolation of Philosophy'' ('' la, De consolatione philosophiae'')'','' often titled as ''The Consolation of Philosophy'' or simply the ''Consolation,'' is a philosophical work by the Roman statesman Boethius. Written in 523 while he was imprisoned by King Theodoric, it is often described as the last great Western work of the Classical Period. Boethius's ''Consolation'' heavily influenced the philosophy of late antiquity, as well as Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity.Dante placed Boethius the "last of the Romans and first of the Scholastics" among the doctors in his Paradise (see ''The Divine Comedy'') (see also below). Description ''On the Consolation of Philosophy'' was written in AD 523 during a one-year imprisonment Boethius served while awaiting trial—and eventual execution—for the alleged crime of treason under the Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great. Boethius was at the very heights of power in Rome, holding the prestigious office of ''magister of ...
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Consolatio (Cicero)
''Consolatio'' (; ''Consolation'') is a lost philosophical work written by Marcus Tullius Cicero in the year 45 BC. The work had been written to soothe his grief after the death of his daughter, Tullia, which had occurred in February of the same year. Not much is known about the work, although it seems to have been inspired by the Greek philosopher Crantor's ancient work ''De Luctu'' ("On Grief"), and its structure was probably similar to a series of letter correspondences between Servius Sulpicius Rufus and Cicero. Fragments of the work survive, having been quoted by Lactantius, and Jerome makes note of the work in a consolatory letter to Heliodorus of Altino. A popular piece of writing until its loss, the ''Consolatio'' is widely accepted as the distinct work that transmitted the earlier ''consolatio'' literary tradition to the Romans of the late Republic. In 1583, Italian scholar Carlo Sigonio claimed to have discovered a non-fragmentary version of the ''Consolatio'', alth ...
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Boethius
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480 – 524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, ''magister officiorum'', historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the translation of the Greek classics into Latin, a precursor to the Scholastic movement, and, along with Cassiodorus, one of the two leading Christian scholars of the 6th century. The local cult of Boethius in the Diocese of Pavia was sanctioned by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in 1883, confirming the diocese's custom of honouring him on the 23 October. Boethius was born in Rome a few years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. A member of the Anicii family, he was orphaned following the family's sudden decline and was raised by Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, a later consul. After mastering both Latin and Greek in his youth, Boethius rose to prominence as a statesman during the Ostrogothic Kingdom: becoming a senator by a ...
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Seneca The Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (; 65 AD), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born in Córdoba in Hispania, and raised in Rome, where he was trained in rhetoric and philosophy. His father was Seneca the Elder, his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and his nephew was the poet Lucan. In AD 41, Seneca was exiled to the island of Corsica under emperor Claudius, but was allowed to return in 49 to become a tutor to Nero. When Nero became emperor in 54, Seneca became his advisor and, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, provided competent government for the first five years of Nero's reign. Seneca's influence over Nero declined with time, and in 65 Seneca was forced to take his own life for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, in which he was probably ...
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Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus banished him to Tomis, a Dacian province on the Black Sea, where he remained a decade until his death. Overview A contemporary of the older poets Virgil and Horace, Ovid was the first major Roman poet to begin his career during Augustus's reign. Collectively, they are considered the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian described Ovid as the last of the Latin love elegists.Quint. ''Inst.'' 10.1.93 He enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, but the emperor Augustu ...
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Fortuna
Fortuna ( la, Fortūna, equivalent to the Greek goddess Tyche) is the goddess of fortune and the personification of luck in Roman religion who, largely thanks to the Late Antique author Boethius, remained popular through the Middle Ages until at least the Renaissance. The blindfolded depiction of her is still an important figure in many aspects of today's Italian culture, where the dichotomy ''fortuna / sfortuna'' (luck / unluck) plays a prominent role in everyday social life, also represented by the very common refrain "La eafortuna è cieca" (latin ''Fortuna caeca est''; "Luck oddessis blind"). Fortuna is often depicted with a gubernaculum (ship's rudder), a ball or Rota Fortunae (wheel of fortune, first mentioned by Cicero) and a cornucopia (horn of plenty). She might bring good or bad luck: she could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Lady Justice, except that Fortuna does not hold a balance. Fortuna came to represent life's capriciousness. Sh ...
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Albinovanus Pedo
Albinovanus Pedo was a Roman poet who flourished during the Augustan age. Works Pedo wrote ''Theseis'', referred to in a letter from his friend Ovid, epigrams which are commended by Martial and an epic poem on the exploits of Germanicus. He had the reputation of being an excellent ''raconteur'', and Quintilian awards him qualified praise as a writer of epics. All that remains of his works is a fragment preserved in the ''Suasoria'' of the rhetorician Seneca the Elder, from a description of the voyage of Germanicus (AD 16) through the river Ems to the Northern Ocean, when he was overtaken by the storm described by Tacitus. The cavalry commander spoken of by the historian is probably identical with the poet.Tacitus, ''Annales'' i. 60 Three elegies were formerly attributed to Pedo by Scaliger; two on the death of Maecenas (''In Obitum Maecenatis'' and ''De Verbis Maecenatis moribundi''), and a ''consolatio'' addressed to Livia to console her for the death of her son Drusus (''Cons ...
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Crantor
Crantor ( el, Κράντωρ, ''gen''.: Κράντορος; died 276/5 BC) was a Greek philosopher and scholarch (leader) of the Old Academy, probably born around the middle of the 4th century BC, at Soli in Cilicia (modern-day Turkey). Life Crantor moved to Athens in order to study philosophy, where he became a pupil of Xenocrates and a friend of Polemon, and one of the most distinguished supporters of the philosophy of the older Academy. As Xenocrates died 314/3 BC, Crantor must have come to Athens prior to that year, although the date of his birth is not known. He died before Polemon and Crates. Dropsy was the cause of his death. He left his fortune, which amounted to twelve talents, to Arcesilaus who succeeded him as scholarch of the Academy. Writings Crantor was the first of Plato's followers who wrote commentaries on the works of his master. He also made some attempts at poetry; and Diogenes Laërtius relates, that, after sealing up a collection of his poems, he dep ...
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Tusculanae Disputationes
The ''Tusculanae Disputationes'' (also ''Tusculanae Quaestiones''; English: ''Tusculan Disputations'') is a series of five books written by Cicero, around 45 BC, attempting to popularise Greek philosophy in Ancient Rome, including Stoicism. It is so called as it was reportedly written at his villa in Tusculum. His daughter had recently died and in mourning Cicero devoted himself to philosophical studies. The ''Tusculan Disputations'' consist of five books, each on a particular theme: On the contempt of death; On pain; On grief; On emotional disturbances; and whether Virtue alone is sufficient for a happy life. Context In the year 45 BC, when Cicero was around 61 years of age, his daughter, Tullia, died following childbirth. Her loss afflicted Cicero to such a degree that he abandoned all public business and left the city retiring to Asterra, which was a country house that he had near Antium. There he devoted himself to philosophical studies, writing several works, including ''De f ...
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Stoicism
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that the practice of virtue is both necessary and sufficient to achieve (happiness, ): one flourishes by living an ethical life. The Stoics identified the path to with a life spent practicing the cardinal virtues and living in accordance with nature. The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or called in themselves ('' adiaphora'') but have value as "material for virtue to act upon". Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics. The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and they believed people shou ...
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Epistulae Ex Ponto
''Epistulae ex Ponto'' (''Letters from the Black Sea'') is a work of Ovid, in four books. It is a collection of letters describing Ovid's exile in Tomis (modern-day Constanța) written in elegiac couplets and addressed to his wife and friends. The first three books were composed between 12–13 AD, according to the general academic consensus: "none of these elegies contains references to events falling outside that time span". The fourth book is believed to have been published posthumously. The poems The themes of the letters are similar to those of ''Tristia''. Ovid writes to his wife and friends about the grimness of his exile, his deteriorating state of health and the future of his literary works. The last surviving letter of the collection is addressed to an unnamed enemy. A recurring request to Ovid's named addressees in ''Epistulae ex Ponto'' remains his desire for a change of location from Tomis, which he repeatedly describes as "a town located in a war-stricken cultura ...
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