Aelius Donatus (; fl. mid-fourth century AD) was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

grammarian and teacher of

rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate parti ...

Works

He was the author of a number of professional works, of which several are extant: *Ars maior – A commentary on Latin grammar. * Ars minor – A commentary on parts of Latin Speech. * Commentvm Terenti, Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex with preface de tragoedia et comoedia (Commentary on Terence, Six Comedies of Terence with the preface About Tragedies and Comedies) – A commentary on the playwright

Terence Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 166–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought ...

and all Six of his plays, probably compiled from other commentaries. The preface is a commentary on the "proper" structures of Tragedies and Comedies by Donatus titled, "About Comedies and Tragedies." It has never been translated to English as parts are missing from the original manuscript. It has partially been translated to German. * Explicatio in Ciceronis De inventione (An Explanation of the

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

De Inventione ''De Inventione'' is a handbook for orators that Cicero composed when he was still a young man. Quintilian tells us that Cicero considered the work rendered obsolete by his later writings. Originally four books in all, only two have survived into ...

) * Vita Vergili (Life of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

) is thought to be based on a lost ''Vita'' by Suetonius, together with the preface and introduction of his commentary on Virgil's works. A greatly expanded version of

Servius Servius is the name of: * Servius (praenomen), the personal name * Maurus Servius Honoratus, a late fourth-century and early fifth-century grammarian * Servius Tullius, the Roman king * Servius Sulpicius Rufus, the 1st century BC Roman jurist See ...

' commentary exists, however, which is supplemented with frequent and extensive extracts from what is thought to be Donatus' commentary on Virgil. Donatus was a proponent of an early system of

punctuation Punctuation (or sometimes interpunction) is the use of spacing, conventional signs (called punctuation marks), and certain typographical devices as aids to the understanding and correct reading of written text, whether read silently or aloud. An ...

, consisting of dots placed in three successively higher positions to indicate successively longer pauses, roughly equivalent to the modern comma, colon, and full stop. This system remained current through the seventh century, when a more refined system created by

Isidore of Seville Isidore of Seville ( la, Isidorus Hispalensis; c. 560 – 4 April 636) was a Spanish scholar, theologian, and archbishop of Seville. He is widely regarded, in the words of 19th-century historian Montalembert, as "the last scholar of ...

gained prominence. In "About Comedy and Tragedy" in his Commentary on Terence, Donatus was the first person known to document the system whereby a

play Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * P ...

is made up of three separate parts:

protasis In drama, a protasis is the introductory part of a play, usually its first act. The term was coined by the fourth-century Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. He defined a play as being made up of three separate parts, the other two being epitasis an ...

epitasis In classical drama, the epitasis ( grc, ἐπίτασις) is the main action of a play, in which the trials and tribulations of the main character increase and build toward a climax and dénouement. It is the third and central part when a play i ...

, and

catastrophe Catastrophe or catastrophic comes from the Greek κατά (''kata'') = down; στροφή (''strophē'') = turning ( el, καταστροφή). It may refer to: A general or specific event * Disaster, a devastating event * The Asia Minor Catastro ...

. Aelius Donatus should not be confused with

Tiberius Claudius Donatus Tiberius Claudius Donatus was a Roman Latin grammarian of the late 4th and early 5th century AD of whom a single work is known, the ''Interpretationes Vergilianae'', a commentary on Virgil's ''Aeneid''. His work, rediscovered in 1438, proved pop ...

, also the author of a commentary (''Interpretationes'') on the ''

Aeneid The ''Aeneid'' ( ; la, Aenē̆is or ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of th ...

'', who lived about 50 years later.

References

* Daintree, David. 1990. "The Virgil Commentary of Aelius Donatus: Black Hole or 'Éminence Grise'?" ''Greece & Rome'' 37.1: 65–79. * Demetriou, Chrysanthi. 2014. "Aelius Donatus and His Commentary on Terence’s Comedies." In ''The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy.'' Edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele C. Scafuro, 782–799. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. * Dutsch, Dorota M. 2008. ''Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy.'' Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. * Farrell, Joseph. 2016. "Ancient Commentaries on Theocritus’ Idylls and Virgil's Eclogues." In ''Classical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre.'' Edited by Christina F. Kraus and Christopher Stray, 397–418. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. * Ferri, Rolando. 2016. "An Ancient Grammarian's View of How the Spoken Language Works: Pragmalinguistic Observations in Donatus' Commentum Terentii." In ''The Latin of the Grammarians: Reflections about Language in the Roman World.'' Edited by Rolando Ferri and Anna Zago. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. * Kragelund, Patrick. 2012. "Evidence for Performances of Republican Comedy in Fourth-century Rome." ''Classical Quarterly'' 62.1: 415–422. * Maltby, Robert. 2003. "The Role of Etymologies in Servius and Donatus." In E''tymologia: Studies in Ancient Etymology. Proceedings of the Cambridge Conference on Ancient Etymology, 25–27 September 2000.'' Edited by Christos Nifadopoulos, 103–118. Münster, Germany: Nodus Publikationen. * McGill, Scott. 2014. "The Plagiarized Virgil in Donatus, Servius, and the Anthologia Latina." ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'' 107: 365–383. * Murgia, Charles E. 2004. "The Truth about Vergil's Commentators." In ''Romane Memento: Vergil in the Fourth Century.'' Edited by Roger Rees, 189–200. London: Duckworth. * Stok, F. 2012. "Commenting on Virgil, from Aelius Donatus to Servius." ''Dead Sea Discoveries'' 19.3: 464–484.

External links

W.J. Chase, The Ars minor of Donatus : for one thousand years the leading textbook of grammar, 1926
Latin and English translation.

Aelius Donatus' ''Life of Virgil'' in the original Latin.

the Loeb English translation (which presumes that Donatus' ''Life'' "is almost wholly Suetonius’.")

includes interpolated text not included in the Loeb translation
Latin texts of some of Aelius Donatus
including the ''Ars Minor'' and all the parts of the ''Ars Major''
The commentary on Terence onlineCorpus Grammaticorum Latinorum: complete texts and full bibliographyCommentum in Terentii Comoedias
From th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aelius Donatus Grammarians of Latin Ancient linguists 4th-century Romans 4th-century Latin writers Donatus

Works

References

Further reading

External links