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Latin Anthology
The ''Latin Anthology'' is a modern name given to a collection of Latin verse, from the age of Ennius to about 1000, formed by Pieter Burmann the Younger. Nothing corresponding to the Greek Anthology is known to have existed among the Romans, though professional epigrammatists like Martial published their volumes on their own account, collections of short sententiae were compiled from authors like Publilius Syrus, and small groups of verse on special subjects, like the Priapeia, also survive. The first general collection of scattered pieces made by a modern scholar was Scaliger's ''Catalecta veterum Poetarum'' (1573), succeeded by the more ample one of Pithoeus, ''Epigrammata et Poemata e Codicibus et Lapidibus collecta'' (1590). Numerous additions, principally from inscriptions, continued to be made, and in 1759–1773 Burmann digested the whole into his ''Anthologia veterum Latinorum Epigrammatum et Poematum'', the editorship of which fell to philologist Johann Christian Wernsd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Poetry
The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus, the earliest surviving examples of Latin literature, are estimated to have been composed around 205-184 BC. History Scholars conventionally date the start of Latin literature to the first performance of a play in verse by a Greek slave, Livius Andronicus, at Rome in 240 BC. Livius translated Greek New Comedy for Roman audiences, using meters that were basically those of Greek drama, modified to the needs of Latin. His successors Plautus ( 254 – 184 BC) and Terence ( 195/185 – 159? BC) further refined the borrowings from the Greek stage and the prosody of their verse is substantially the same as for classical Latin verse. Ennius (239 – 169 BC), virtually a contemporary of Livius, introduced the traditional meter of Greek epic, the dactylic hexameter, into Latin literature; he substituted it for the jerky Saturnian meter in which Livius had been composing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ennius
Quintus Ennius (; c. 239 – c. 169 BC) was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce, Apulia, (Ancient Calabria, today Salento), a town founded by the Messapians, and could speak Greek as well as Latin and Oscan (his native language). Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence in Latin literature was significant, particularly in his use of Greek literary models. Biography Very little is reliably known about the life of Ennius. His contemporaries hardly mentioned him and much that is related about him could have been embroidered from references to himself in his now fragmentary writings. Some lines of the ''Annales'', as well as ancient testimonies, for example, suggest that Ennius opened his epic with a recollection of a dream in which the ancient epic-writer Homer informed him that his spirit had been reborn into Ennius. It is true ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pieter Burmann The Younger
Pieter Burman (23 October 1713 – 24 June 1778), also known as Peter or Pieter Burmann ( la, Petrus Burmannus) and distinguished from his uncle as (' or '), was a Dutch philologist. Life Born at Amsterdam, he was brought up by his uncle in Leiden, and afterwards studied law and philology under CA Duker and Arnold von Drakenborch at Utrecht. In 1735 he was appointed professor of eloquence and history at Franeker, with which the chair of poetry was combined in 1741. In the following year he left Franeker for Amsterdam to become professor of history and philology at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam. He was subsequently professor of poetry (1744), general librarian (1752), and inspector of the gymnasium (1753). In 1777 he retired, and died on 24 June 1778 at Santhorst, near Wassenaar. He resembled his more famous uncle in the manner and direction of his studies, and in his violent disposition, which involved him in quarrels with contemporaries, notably Saxe and Christi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Anthology
The ''Greek Anthology'' ( la, Anthologia Graeca) is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the ''Greek Anthology'' comes from two manuscripts, the ''Palatine Anthology'' of the 10th century and the '' Anthology of Planudes'' (or ''Planudean Anthology'') of the 14th century.: Explanatory text for the book of W. R. Paton entitled "The Greek Anthology with an English Translation" (1916), the same text is also at the introduction in page http://www.ancientlibrary.com/greek-anthology/ before the facsimile copy of the pages of the same book] The earliest known anthology in Greek was compiled by Meleager of Gadara in the first century BC, under the title ''Anthologia'', or "Flower-gathering." It contained poems by the compiler himself and forty-six other poets, including Archilochus, Alcaeus, Anacreon, and Simonides. In his preface to his collection, Meleager describes his arrangement o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two millennia. The presence of wit or sarcasm tends to distinguish non-poetic epigrams from aphorisms and adages, which tend to lack those qualities. Ancient Greek The Greek tradition of epigrams began as poems inscribed on votive offerings at sanctuariesincluding statues of athletesand on funerary monuments, for example "Go tell it to the Spartans, passersby...". These original epigrams did the same job as a short prose text might have done, but in verse. Epigram became a literary genre in the Hellenistic period, probably developing out of scholarly collections of inscriptional epigrams. Though modern epigrams are usually thought of as very short, Greek literary epigram was not always as short as later examples, and the divide between "ep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these short, witty poems he cheerfully satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing. He wrote a total of 1,561 epigrams, of which 1,235 are in elegiac couplets. Martial has been called the greatest Latin epigrammatist, and is considered the creator of the modern epigram. Early life Knowledge of his origins and early life are derived almost entirely from his works, which can be more or less dated according to the well-known events to which they refer. In Book X of his ''Epigrams'', composed between 95 and 98, he mentions celebrating his fifty-seventh birthday; hence he was born during March 38, 39, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sententiae
''Sententiae'', the nominative plural of the Latin word ''sententia'', are brief moral sayings, such as proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, or apophthegms taken from ancient or popular or other sources, often quoted without context. ''Sententia'', the nominative singular, also called a "sentence", is a kind of rhetorical proof. Through the invocation of a proverb, quotation, or witty turn of phrase during a presentation or conversation one may be able to gain the assent of the listener, who will hear a kind of non-logical, but agreed-upon truth in what one is saying. An example of this is the phrase "age is better with wine" playing off of the adage "wine is better with age". The same saying is present in . History The use of ''sententiae'' has been explained by Aristotle (when he discusses the γνώμη ''gnomê'', or sententious maxim, as a form of enthymeme), Quintilian, and other classical authorities. Early modern English writers, heavily influenced by various humanist ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Publilius Syrus
__NOTOC__ Publilius Syrus ( fl. 85–43 BC), was a Latin writer, best known for his sententiae. He was a Syrian from Antioch who was brought as a slave to Roman Italy. Syrus was brought to Rome on the same ship that brought a certain Manilius, astronomer - not the famous Manilius of the 1st century AD (see Pliny, ''NH'' X, 4-5), and Staberius Eros the grammarian. By his wit and talent, Syrus won the favour of his master, who granted him manumission and educated him. He became a member of the Publilia gens. Publilius' name, due to the palatalization of 'l' between two 'i's in the Early Middle Ages, is often presented by manuscripts (and some printed editions) in corrupt form as ' Publius', Publius being a very common Roman praenomen. Work His mimes, in which he acted, had a great success in the provincial towns of Italy and at the games given by Julius Caesar in 46 BC. Publilius was perhaps even more famous as an improviser. He received from Julius Caesar himself the prize in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Priapeia
The ''Priapeia'' (or ''Carmina Priapea'') is a collection of eighty (in some editions ninety-five) anonymous short Latin poems in various meters on subjects pertaining to the phallic god Priapus. They are believed to date from the 1st century AD or the beginning of the 2nd century. A traditional theory about their origin is that they are an anthology of poems written by various authors on the same subject. However, it has recently been argued that the 80 poems are in fact the work of a single author, presenting a kind of biography of Priapus from his vigorous youth to his impotence in old age. Overview Not counting the last few poems, which seem not to be part of the original collection, the Priapeia consists of 80 epigrams (average length 6 to 8 lines) mainly written in either hendecasyllables or elegiac couplets, with a few also in scazons. Many of the epigrams are written as though they were to be engraved on the walls of a shrine containing a statue of the god Priapus that s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scaliger
The Della Scala family, whose members were known as Scaligeri () or Scaligers (; from the Latinized ''de Scalis''), was the ruling family of Verona and mainland Veneto (except for Venice) from 1262 to 1387, for a total of 125 years. History When Ezzelino III was elected ''podestà'' of the commune in 1226, he was able to convert the office into a permanent lordship. Upon his death the Great Council elected as podestà Mastino I della Scala, Mastino I, who succeeded in converting the ''signoria'' (seigniory) into a family inheritance, governing at first with the acquiescence of the commune, then, when they failed to re-elect him in 1262, he effected a coup d'état and was acclaimed ("people's captain"), at the head of the commune's troops. In 1277 Mastino was killed by a faction of the nobles. The reign of his son Alberto I della Scala, Alberto as ''capitano'' (1277–1302) was an incessant war against the counts of San Bonifacio, who were aided by the House of Este. Of his thre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pithoeus
Pierre Pithou (1 November 1539 – 1 November 1596) was a French lawyer and scholar. He is also known as Petrus Pithoeus. Life He was born at Troyes. From childhood he loved literature, and his father Pierre encouraged this interest. Young Pithou was called to the Paris bar in 1560. On the outbreak of the second war of religion in 1567, Pithou, who was a Calvinist, withdrew to Sedan, France and afterwards to Basel, returning to France on the publication of the edict of pacification. Soon afterwards he accompanied the duc de Montmorency on his embassy to England, returning shortly before the massacre of St Bartholomew, in which he narrowly escaped with his life. Next year he followed the example of the future Henry IV of France by abjuring the Protestant faith. Henry, shortly after his accession to the throne, recognized Pithou's talents and services by giving him various legal appointments. He co-operated in publishing the ''Satire Ménippée'' (1593), which did much to dama ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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