Mauretania
Mauretania (; ) is the Latin name for a region in the ancient Maghreb. It stretched from central present-day Algeria westwards to the Atlantic, covering northern present-day Morocco, and southward to the Atlas Mountains. Its native inhabitants, ...
), was a
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 ...
grammarian
Grammarian may refer to:
* Alexandrine grammarians, philologists and textual scholars in Hellenistic Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE
* Biblical grammarians, scholars who study the Bible and the Hebrew language
* Grammarian (Greco-Roman ...
and writer on prosody who flourished probably at the end of the 2nd century AD.
His references to Septimius Serenus and
Alphius Avitus
Alphius Avitus was a Latin poet believed to have flourished during the reigns of the Roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius, that is, the late 1st century BC or early 1st century AD. Many suppose him to be the same person with Alfius Flavus—the pr ...
, who belonged to the school of "new poets" (''poetae neoterici'' or ''novelli'') of the reign of
Hadrian
Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania B ...
and later, seem to show that he was a near contemporary of those writers. He was the author of a treatise (incomplete) in four books (written in a variety of metres), on letters, syllables, feet and metres, of which considerable use was made by later writers on similar subjects. The most important part of it is that which deals with metres, based on the work of
Caesius Bassus
Gaius Caesius Bassus (d. AD 79) was a Roman lyric poet who lived in the reign of Nero.
He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works he edited (''Schol. on Persius'', vi. I). He had a great reputa ...
, the friend of
Persius
Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Ancient Rome, Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan civilization, Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satires, he shows a Stoicism, Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he ...
.
By some authorities Terentianus has been identified with the prefect of Syene mentioned in
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 ...
(i. 86), which would make his date about a century earlier; others, again, who placed
Habent sua fata libelli
The List of Latin expressions, Latin expression ''Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli'' (literally, "According to the capabilities of the reader, books have their destiny"), is verse 1286 of ''De litteris, De syllabis, De Metris'' by Terent ...
''
*
Trochaic septenarius In ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek and Latin literature, the trochaic septenarius or trochaic tetrameter catalectic is one of two major forms of poetic metre based on the trochee as its dominant rhythmic unit, the other being much rarer troc ...
Notes
References
*Edition by Heinrich Keil, ''Grammatici Latini'', vi.
*Edition of the above with commentary by L. Santen (1825)
*Teuffel-Schwabe, ''History of Roman Literature'' (Eng. tr.), 3730
Bibliotheca Augustana
Augsburg Technical University of Applied Sciences (german: Technische Hochschule Augsburg or simply ''THA'') is a German university located in Augsburg. It was founded in 1971, but its institutional roots as an art academy go back to 1670. With ...