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Brevis Brevians
''Brevis brevians'', also known as iambic shortening or , is a feature of early Latin verse, in which a pair of syllables which are theoretically short + long (u –) can count in the metre as a pair of short syllables (u u). The plural is . The main types of iambic shortening are as follows: (1) commonly used two-syllable words such as in which the final vowel is usually short even in classical Latin; (2) the first two syllables of phrases starting with a two-syllable word such as "go, please", "I want to know", "at the forum", "newly born"; (3) the first two syllables of longer words accented on the 3rd syllable, such as "pleasure" and "old age"; (4) the first two syllables of phrases starting from a monosyllable such as "what are you afraid of?", "what he is saying", "from the army", "angry with you"; (5) more rarely, and mainly in anapaestic metres, it can occur at the end of words of cretic rhythm (– u –) such as "to no one more" or across word boundaries as in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iamb (poetry)
An iamb () or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in () "beautiful (f.)"). This terminology was adopted in the description of accentual-syllabic verse in English, where it refers to a foot comprising an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in ''abóve''). Thus a Latin word like , because of its short-long rhythm, is considered by Latin scholars to be an iamb, but because it has a stress on the first syllable, in modern linguistics it is considered to be a trochee. Etymology R. S. P. Beekes has suggested that the grc, ἴαμβος ''iambos'' has a Pre-Greek origin. An old hypothesis is that the word is borrowed from Phrygian or Pelasgian, and literally means "Einschritt", i. e., "one-step", compare ''dithyramb'' and ''thriambus'', but H. S. Versnel rejects this etymology and sugg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrrhic
A pyrrhic (; el, πυρρίχιος ''pyrrichios'', from πυρρίχη ''pyrrichē'') is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of two unaccented, short syllables. It is also known as a dibrach. Poetic use in English Tennyson used pyrrhics and spondees quite frequently, for example, in '' In Memoriam'': When the blood creeps and the nerves prick. "When the" and "and the" in the second line may be considered as pyrrhics (also analyzable as ionic meter). Pyrrhics alone are not used to construct an entire poem due to the monotonous effect. Edgar Allan Poe observed that many experts rejected it from English metrics and concurred:The pyrrhic is rightfully dismissed. Its existence in either ancient or modern rhythm is purely chimerical, and the insisting on so perplexing a nonentity as a foot of two short syllables, affords, perhaps, the best evidence of the gross irrationality and subservience to authority which characterise our Prosody. War dance By extension, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucilius
The gens Lucilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The most famous member of this gens was the poet Gaius Lucilius, who flourished during the latter part of the second century BC.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vol. II, p. 822 ("Lucilia Gens"). Although many Lucilii appear in Roman history, the only one known to have obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state was Lucilius Longus, consul ''suffectus'' in AD 7. Origin The nomen ''Lucilius'' is a patronymic surname, derived from the common Latin praenomen ''Lucius''. The satirist Lucilius is said to have come from Suessa Aurunca, an ancient town of the Aurunci, where a Latin colony was established in 313 BC. Branches and cognomina In the time of the Republic, the surnames of the Lucilii were ''Balbus'' and ''Bassus'', the former originally referring to one who stammers, and the latter referring to someone ''stout'' or ''sturdy''. Later, in imperial times, we find ''Capito'', given to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucius Accius
Lucius Accius (; 170 – c. 86 BC), or Lucius Attius, was a Roman tragic poet and literary scholar. Accius was born in 170 BC at Pisaurum, a town founded in the Ager Gallicus in 184 BC. He was the son of a freedman and a freedwoman, probably from Rome. The year of his death is unknown, but he must have lived to a great age, since Cicero (born 106 BC, hence 64 years younger) writes of having conversed with him on literary matters. Literary works Accius was a prolific writer and enjoyed a very high reputation. The titles and considerable fragments (about 700 lines) of some fifty plays have been preserved. Judging from the titles and fragments, scholars have surmised that most, if not all, of these poems were tragic in nature, although Pliny the Younger ranks him among the erotic poets. His career as a poet can be traced over the course of 36 years from B.C. 140, to B.C. 104. Most of his poetical works were imitations or free translations of the Greek, especially Aeschylus. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pacuvius
Marcus Pacuvius (; 220 – c. 130 BC) was an ancient Roman tragic poet. He is regarded as the greatest of their tragedians prior to Lucius Accius. Biography He was the nephew and pupil of Ennius, by whom Roman tragedy was first raised to a position of influence and dignity. In the interval between the death of Ennius (169 BC) and the advent of Accius, the youngest and most productive of the tragic poets, Pacuvius alone maintained the continuity of the serious drama, and perpetuated the character first imparted to it by Ennius. Like Ennius he probably belonged to an Oscan stock, and was born at Brundisium, which had become a Roman colony in 244 BC. Hence he never attained to that perfect idiomatic purity of style, which was the special glory of the early writers of comedy, Naevius and Plautus. Pacuvius obtained distinction also as a painter; and Pliny the Elder (''Naturalis Historia'' xxxv) mentions a work of his in the Temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium. He was le ... [...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] |
Lucius Pomponius
Lucius Pomponius (fl. c. 90 BC or earlier) was a Roman dramatist. Called ''Bononiensis'' (“native of Bononia” (i.e. Bologna), Pomponius was a writer of Atellanae Fabulae (Atellan Fables), and a near contemporary of Quintus Novius. Pomponius was the first to give artistic dignity to the Atellan Fables by making them less improvised and providing the actors with a script (written in the metrical forms and technical rules of the Greeks) and a predetermined plot. Pomponius’ skill in the utilization of rustic, obscene, quotidian, alliterative, punning, and farcical language was remarked on by Macrobius in his ''Saturnalia'', as well as by Seneca and Marcus Velleius Paterculus. His work included political, religious, social, and mythological satires. Surviving Titles and Fragments Some of the titles of the seventy works attributed to him are: SourcesMeyer, Maurice, “Études sur le théâtre latin” [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atellan Farce
The Atellan Farce (Latin: ''Atellanae Fabulae'' or ''Fabulae Atellanae'', "favola atellana"; ''Atellanicum exhodium'', "Atella comedies"), also known as the Oscan Games (Latin: ''ludi Osci'', "Oscan plays"), were masked improvised farces in Ancient Rome. The Oscan athletic games were very popular, and usually preceded by longer pantomime plays. The origin of the Atellan Farce is uncertain, but the farces are similar to other forms of ancient theatre such as the South Italian Phlyakes, the plays of Plautus and Terence, and Roman mime. Most historians believe the name is derived from Atella, an Oscan town in Campania. The farces were written in Oscan and imported to Rome in 391 BC. In later Roman versions, only the ridiculous characters speak their lines in Oscan, while the others speak in Latin. History and surviving evidence The Atellan Farce was a masked farce that originated in Italy by 300 B.C.and remained popular for more than 500 years. Originally, the farces were improvised ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucius Afranius (poet)
Lucius Afranius was an ancient Roman comic poet, who lived at the beginning of the 1st century BC. Life Afranius' comedies described Roman scenes and manners (the genre called ''comoediae togatae'') and the subjects were mostly taken from the life of the lower classes (''comoediae tabernariae''). They were considered by some ancients to be frequently polluted with disgraceful amours, which, according to Quintilian, were only a representation of the conduct of Afranius. He depicted, however, Roman life with such accuracy that he is classed with Menander, from whom indeed he borrowed largely. He imitated the style of Gaius Titius, and his language is praised by Cicero. His comedies are spoken of in the highest terms by the ancient writers, and under the Empire they not only continued to be read, but were even acted, of which an example occurs in the time of Nero. They seem to have been well known even at the latter end of the 4th century AD. Quintilian's judgement The Spanish-R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caecilius Statius
Statius Caecilius, also known as Caecilius Statius (; c. 220 BC – c. 166 BC), was a Roman comic poet. Life and work A contemporary and intimate friend of Ennius, according to tradition he was born in the territory of the Insubrian Gauls, probably in Mediolanum, and was probably taken as a prisoner to Rome (c. 200), during the Roman-Gallic wars. Originally a slave, he assumed the name of Caecilius from his patron, probably one of the Metelli. However, according to one source he was free-born of Samnite stock whose family had settled in Cisalpine Gaul following the Second Punic War. In this case he would have been a native speaker of a language close to Latin, rather than Gaulish Insubrian. There he came to the attention of Marcus Caecilius Denter, the Legatus Legionibus Praepositus in Cisalpine Gaul in 200 BC who introduced him in Rome. He supported himself by adapting Greek plays for the Roman stage from the New Comedy writers, especially Menander, a ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Priscian
Priscianus Caesariensis (), commonly known as Priscian ( or ), was a Latin grammarian and the author of the ''Institutes of Grammar'', which was the standard textbook for the study of Latin during the Middle Ages. It also provided the raw material for the field of speculative grammar. Life The details of Priscian's life are largely unknown. Priscian was born and raised in the North-African city of Caesarea (modern Cherchell, Algeria), the capital of the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis, which during his lifetime would be under the control of the Vandalic Kingdom. According to Cassiodorus, he taught Latin at Constantinople in the early sixth century. His minor works include a panegyric to Anastasius (491—518), written about 512, which helps establish his time period. In addition, the manuscripts of his ''Institutes'' contain a subscription to the effect that the work was copied (526, 527) by Flavius Theodorus, a clerk in the imperial secretariat. Works Priscian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus (; c. 254 – 184 BC), commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus. The word Plautine refers to both Plautus's own works and works similar to or influenced by his. Biography Not much is known about Titus Maccius Plautus's early life. It is believed that he was born in Sarsina, a small town in Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, around 254 BC.''The Concise Oxford Companion to Classical Literature'' (1996) Ed. M.C. Howatson and Ian Chilvers, Oxford University Press, Oxford Reference Online According to Morris Marples, Plautus worked as a stage-carpenter or scene-shifter in his early years. It is from this work, perhaps, that his love of the theater originated. His acting talent was eventually discovered; and he adopted the names "Maccius" (a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
