Grattius (or Gratius) Faliscus was a Roman poet who flourished during the life of

Augustus Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...

(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 is a passing reference in

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 ...

, ''Ex Ponto'': :''Tityrus antiquas et erat qui pasceret herbas
Aptaque venanti Gratius arma daret.'' Some lines by

Manilius The gens Manilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are frequently confused with the Manlii, Mallii, and Mamilii. Several of the Manilii were distinguished in the service of the Republic, with Manius Manilius obtaini ...

have been supposed to allude to Grattius, but the terms in which they are expressed are too vague to warrant such a conclusion. According to

Johann Christian Wernsdorf Johann Christian Wernsdorf I (6 November 1723 in Wittenberg – 25 August 1793 in Helmstedt) was a German writer, poet, and rhetorician. Life Born the son of Gottlieb Wernsdorf the Elder and his wife Magaretha Katharina (nee Nitsch), he lost hi ...

, who argued from the name, he must have been a slave or a freedman. The

cognomen A ''cognomen'' (; plural ''cognomina''; from ''con-'' "together with" and ''(g)nomen'' "name") was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became here ...

, or epithet, Faliscus, from which it has been inferred that he was a native of

Falerii Falerii (now Fabrica di Roma) was a city in southern Etruria, 50 km (31 mi) northeast of Rome, 34 km (21 mi) from Veii (a major Etruscan city-state near the River Tiber) and about 1.5 km (0.9 mi) west of the ancient Via Flaminia. It was the main c ...

was first introduced by Barth, on the authority of a manuscript which no one else ever saw, and probably originated in a forced interpretation of one of the lines in the poem, "At contra nostris imbellia lina Faliscis" (5.40).

William Ramsay Sir William Ramsay (; 2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous element ...

argued that in the context, "nostris" here denotes merely "Italian", in contradistinction to the various foreign tribes spoken of in the preceding verses.

Cynegeticon

541

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 of Grattius's poem about hunting are preserved in a manuscript of c. 800 AD. The work describes various kinds of game, methods of hunting, and the best breeds of horses and dogs, using a fairly regular hexameter to do so. Grattius stresses the role of ''ratio'' (

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...

) in hunting, seeing it as a civilising endeavour in the tradition of

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the ...

, as opposed to indulgence in luxuria.P. Tooley, ''Melancholy, Love and Time'' (2004) p. 242-3

The poem, entitled ''Cynegeticon Liber'', professes to set forth the apparatus (''arma'') necessary for the sportsman, and the manner in which the various requisites for the pursuit of game are to be procured, prepared, and preserved (''artes armorum''). Among the ''arma'' of the hunter are included not only nets, gins, snares (''retia, pedicae, laquei''), darts and spears (''jacula, venabula''), but also horses and dogs, and a large portion of the undertaking (verses 150–430) is devoted to a systematic account of the different kinds of hounds and horses. The matter and arrangement of the treatise are derived in a great measure from

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...

, although information was drawn from other ancient sources, such as Dercylus the Arcadian, and Hagnon of

Boeotia Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia ( el, Βοιωτία; modern: ; ancient: ), formerly known as Cadmeis, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece. Its capital is Livadeia, and its ...

Appraisal

According to Ramsay, the language of the ''Cynegetica'' is pure, and not unworthy of the age to which it belongs, but there is frequently a harshness in the structure of the periods, a strange and unauthorised use of particular words, and a general want of distinctness, which, in addition to a very corrupt text, render it a task of great difficulty to determine the exact meaning of many passages. Although considerable skill is manifested in the combination of the parts – Ramsay continues – the author did not possess sufficient power to overcome the obstacles which were triumphantly combated by Virgil. It is remarkable that both the second-century poets Oppianus and

Nemesianus Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus was a Roman poet thought to have been a native of Carthage and flourished about AD 283. He was a popular poet at the court of the Roman emperor Carus ( Historia Augusta, ''Carus'', 11). Works The works be ...

arrogate to themselves the honour of having entered upon a path altogether untrodden. Whether we believe them to be sincere and ignorant, or suspect them of deliberate dishonesty, their bold assertion is sufficient to prove that the poem of Grattius had in their day become almost totally unknown.

Editions

The Cynegetica has been transmitted to modern times through the medium of a single manuscript, which was brought from Gaul to Italy by Actius Sannazarius about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and contained also the '' Cynegetica'' of Nemesianus, and the ''Halieutica'' ascribed to Ovid. A second copy of the first 159 lines was found by Jan van Vliet appended to another manuscript of the Halieutics. The '' editio princeps'' was printed at Venice in February 1534, by Aldus Manutius, in a volume that included the ''Halieutica'' of

, the ''Cynegetica'' and ''Carmen Bucolicum'' of

, the Buolica of Calpurnius Siculus, and the ''Venatio'' of Hadrianus. This edition was reprinted at Augsburg in July of the same year. The best editions are those contained in the ''Poetae Latini Minores'' of

Pieter Burmann the Elder Pieter Burman (1668 – 31 March 1741), also known as Peter or Pieter Burmann ( la, Petrus Burmannus). and posthumously distinguished from his nephew as "the Elder" ( la, Senior), was a Dutch classical scholar. Life Burman was born at Utr ...

(vol. i. Lug. Bat. 1731), and of Wernsdorf (vol. i. p. 6, 293, ii. p. 34, iv. pt. ii. p. 790, 806, v. pt. iii. p. 1445), whose introductions provide all the requisite preliminary information.

Translations

A translation into English verse with notes, and the Latin text, by

Christopher Wase Christopher Wase (1627–29 August 1690) was an English scholar, author, translator, and educator, who was the Architypographus of Oxford University Press for several years. Life The son of John Wase of London, he was born in Hackney. He was e ...

, was published at London in 1654, and a translation into German, also metrical, by S. E. G. Perlet, at Leipzig, in 1826.

References

External links

Cynegeticon
Latin text from J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff, Loeb Classical Library ''Minor Latin Poets'', vol. I; and English translation at

LacusCurtius LacusCurtius is a website specializing in ancient Rome, currently hosted on a server at the University of Chicago. It went online on August 26, 1997; in July 2021 it had "3707 webpages, 765 photos, 772 drawings & engravings, 120 plans, 139 maps." T ...

. {{Authority control Roman-era poets Golden Age Latin writers Ancient Roman writers Falisci Italic people