Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus was a Roman poet thought to have been a native of

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

and flourished about AD 283. He was a popular poet at the court of the Roman emperor

Carus Marcus Aurelius Carus (c. 222 – July or August 283) was Roman emperor from 282 to 283. During his short reign, Carus fought the Germanic tribes and Sarmatians along the Danube frontier with success. He died while campaigning against th ...

(

Historia Augusta The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the sim ...

, ''Carus'', 11).

Works

The works below are by, or sometimes attributed to, Nemesianus

Didactic poetry

Nemesianus wrote poems on the arts of fishing (''Halieutica''), aquatics (''Nautica'') and hunting ('' Cynegetica''), but only a fragment of the last, 325

hexameter Hexameter is a metrical line of verses consisting of six feet (a "foot" here is the pulse, or major accent, of words in an English line of poetry; in Greek and Latin a "foot" is not an accent, but describes various combinations of syllables). It w ...

lines, has been preserved. It is neatly expressed in good

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, and was used as a school textbook in the 9th century AD. Two fragments exist of a poem about bird catching (''De aucupio''), which are sometimes attributed to Nemesianus, although this attribution is considered doubtful.Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. (eds) (1996), the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. p 1033

The Eclogues

Four

eclogue An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics. Overview The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , whi ...

s, formerly attributed to

Titus Calpurnius Siculus Titus Calpurnius Siculus was a Roman bucolic poet. Eleven eclogues have been handed down to us under his name, of which the last four, from metrical considerations and express manuscript testimony, are now generally attributed to Nemesianus, who li ...

, are now generally considered to be by Nemesianus.

The Praise of Hercules

The ''Praise of Hercules'', sometimes printed in

Claudian Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost ent ...

's works, may be by him.

Editions

Complete edition of the works attributed to him in

Emil Baehrens Paul Heinrich Emil Baehrens (24 September 1848, in Bayenthal – 26 September 1888, in Groningen) was a German classical scholar. After completing his studies he became ''Privatdozent'' at Jena. In 1877 he was appointed ordinary professor at the Un ...

, ''Poetae Latini Minores'', iii. (1881); ''Cynegetica'': ed.

Moritz Haupt Moriz or Moritz Haupt (27 July 1808 – 5 February 1874), was a German philologist. Biography He was born at Zittau, Lusatia, Saxony. His early education was mainly conducted by his father, Ernst Friedrich Haupt, burgomaster of Zittau, a man of ...

(with

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 th ...

's ''Halieutica'' and

Grattius Grattius (or Gratius) Faliscus was a Roman poet who flourished during the life of Augustus (63 BC – 14 AD). He is known as the author of a '' Cynegeticon'', a poem on hunting. Life The only reference to Grattius in any extant ancient writer i ...

) 1838, and R. Stern, with Grattius (1832); Italian translation with notes by L. F. Valdrighi (1876). The four eclogues are printed with those of

Calpurnius Titus Calpurnius Siculus was a Roman bucolic poet. Eleven eclogues have been handed down to us under his name, of which the last four, from metrical considerations and express manuscript testimony, are now generally attributed to Nemesianus Marcu ...

in the editions of H. Schenkl (1885) and Charles Haines Keene (1887); see L. Cisorio, ''Studio sulle Egloghe di Nemesiano'' (1895) and ''Dell' imitazione nelle Egloghe di Nemesiano'' (1896); and M. Haupt, ''De Carminibus Bucolicis Calpurnii et Nemesiani'' (1853), the chief treatise on the subject. The text of the ''Cynegetica'', the ''

Eclogues The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil. Background Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...

'', and the doubtful ''Fragment on Bird-Catching'' were published in Vol. II of ''Minor Latin Poets'' (

Loeb Classical Library The Loeb Classical Library (LCL; named after James Loeb; , ) is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and L ...

with English translations (1934).

References

External links

Nemesianus
Latin text and English translations in the Loeb edition, at

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. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nemesianus Roman-era poets Post–Silver Age Latin writers 3rd-century Romans 3rd-century poets Aurelii 3rd-century Latin writers