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Avienius
Postumius Rufius Festus Avienius (or Avienus) was a Latin literature, Latin writer of the 4th century AD. He was a native of Volsinii in Etruria, from the distinguished family of the Rufii Festi. Avienius is not identical with the historian Festus (historian), Festus. Background Avienius made a free translation into Latin of Aratus' didactic poem ''Phaenomena''. He also took a popular Greek poem in hexameters, ''Periegesis,'' briefly delimiting the habitable world from the perspective of Alexandria, written by Dionysius Periegetes in a terse and elegant style that was easy to memorize for students, and translated it into an archaising Latin as his ''Descriptio orbis terrae'' ("Description of the World's Lands"). Only Book I survives, with an unsteady grasp of actual geography and some far-fetched etymologies: see Ophiussa. He wrote ''Ora Maritima'', a poem claimed to contain borrowings from the 6th-century BC ''Massiliote Periplus''.Donnchadh Ó Corráin Chapter 1 "Prehistoric a ...
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Ora Maritima
("The Sea Coast") is a poem written by Avienius. It has been claimed to contain borrowings from the ''Massaliote Periplus'' (perhaps dating to the 6th century BC).Donnchadh Ó Corráin Chapter 1 "Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland", in ''The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland'', R.L. Foster, ed. (Oxford University Press) 2000 "Avienus, Rufus Festus" ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology'', Timothy Darvil, ed.. (Oxford University Press) 2002 This poeticised ''periplus'' resulted in an Anachronism, anachronistic, non-factual account of the coastal regions of the known world. His editor André Berthelot demonstrated that Avienius' land-measurements were derived from Itinerarium, Roman itineraries but inverted some sequences. Berthelot remarked of some names on the Hispania, Hispanic coast: "The omission of Empúries, Emporium, contrasting strangely with the names of Tarragona, Tarragon and Barcelona, may characterize the method of Avienius, who searches archaic docu ...
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Festus (historian)
Festus (died 3 January 380) was a Late Roman historian. His name appears in some manuscripts as Rufius Festus, Rufus Festus, Sextus Rufus or Sextus Festus, but they appear to be corruptions. He is mainly known as the author of an epitome titled ''Breviarium rerum gestarum populi Romani'' ("Summary of the accomplishments of the Romans"), written around AD 370 and commissioned by the Eastern emperor Valens in preparation for his war against Persia. The ''Breviarium'' covers the entire history of the Roman state from the foundation of the city. The book consists of 30 chapters treating Roman events in a terse overview, mainly focused on military and political conflicts. It is estimated to be a work of very low quality. He is often identified with Festus of Tridentum, ''magister memoriae'' (secretary) to Valens and notoriously severe proconsul of Asia, where he was sent to punish those implicated in the conspiracy of Theodorus. The work itself is divided into two parts, one geograp ...
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Aratus
Aratus (; ; c. 315/310 240 BC) was a Greek didactic poet. His major extant work is his hexameter poem ''Phenomena'' (, ''Phainómena'', "Appearances"; ), the first half of which is a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus. It describes the constellations and other celestial phenomena. The second half is called the ''Diosemeia'' (Διοσημεῖα "Forecasts"), and is chiefly about weather lore. Although Aratus was somewhat ignorant of Greek astronomy, his poem was very popular in the Greek and Roman world, as is proven by the large number of commentaries and Latin translations, some of which survive. Life There are several accounts of Aratus's life by anonymous Greek writers, and the Suda and Eudocia also mention him. From these it appears that he was a native of Soli in Cilicia (although one authority says Tarsus). He is known to have studied with Menecrates in Ephesus and Philitas in Cos. As a disciple of the Peripatetic philosopher Praxipha ...
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Ophiussa
Ophiussa, also spelled Ophiusa, is the ancient name given by the ancient Greeks to what is now Portuguese territory near the mouth of the river Tagus. It means Land of Serpents. The expulsion of the ''Oestrimni'' The 4th century Roman poet Rufius Festus Avienius, writing on geographical subjects in ''Ora Maritima'' ("Seacoasts"), a document inspired by a Greek mariners' Periplus, related that the '' Oestriminis'' (''Extreme West'' in Latin) was peopled by the ''Oestrimni'', a people who had been living there for a long time; they had to flee their homeland after an invasion of serpents. These people could be linked to the ''Saephe'' ( Saefs) or ''Ophis'' ("People of the Serpents") and the ''Dragani'' ("People of the Dragons"), who came to those lands and built the territorial entity the Greeks termed ''Ophiussa''. The expulsion of the Oestrimni, from ''Ora Maritima:'' The "serpent people" of the semi-mythical Ophiussa in the far west are noted in ancient Greek sources. L ...
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Dionysius Periegetes
Dionysius Periegetes (, literally Dionysius the Voyager or Traveller, often Latinized to ''Dionysius Periegeta''), also known as Dionysius of Alexandria or Dionysius the African,''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 4th edition, 1810, 9''506/ref> was the author of a description of the then-known world in Greek hexameter verse. He is believed to have been from Alexandria and to have lived around the time of Hadrian (r. 117–138), though some date his lifetime as late as the end of the 3rd century. The work enjoyed popularity in ancient times as a schoolbook. It was translated into Latin by Rufius Festus Avienius, and by the grammarian Priscian. Archbishop Eustathius of Thessalonica wrote a commentary on his work for John Doukas. References Editions and translations * * *: reprinted Hildesheim: Olms, 1974 (this book contains also Eustathius' comment, the scholia, Avienius' ''Descriptio orbis terrarum'' and Priscian's ''Periegesis''). *: reprinted Hildesheim: Olms, 1974 . ...
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Massiliote Periplus
The Massaliote Periplus or Massiliote Periplus is a now-lost merchants' handbook, possibly dating from as early as the 6th century BC, describing the sea routes used by traders from Phoenicia and Tartessus in their journeys around Iron Age Europe. Historian Adolf Schulten proposed it as a theoretical reconstruction of a sixth-century BC periplus, or sailing manual, and believed it had been versified in the lines of the ''Ora Maritima'' (''The Maritime Shores''), preserved by the Roman poet Avienus, who wrote down parts of it much later, during the 4th century AD. Schulten dated it to the 6th century BC. It describes an account of a sea voyage from Oestriminis, modern Pointe du Raz, to Greek colony Massalia, modern Marseille, along the western Mediterranean, made by Eutimenes of Masalia. It also describes seaways running northwards from Cadiz in Spain along the coast of Atlantic Europe to Brittany, Ireland and Britain. The Periplus is the earliest work to describe the trade lin ...
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4th-century Translators
The 4th century was the time period from 301 CE (represented by the Roman numerals CCCI) to 400 CE (CD) in accordance with the Julian calendar. In the West, the early part of the century was shaped by Constantine the Great, who became the first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. Gaining sole reign of the empire, he is also noted for re-establishing a single imperial capital, choosing the site of ancient Byzantium in 330 (over the current capitals, which had effectively been changed by Diocletian's reforms to Milan in the West, and Nicomedeia in the East) to build the city soon called Nova Roma (New Rome); it was later renamed Constantinople in his honor. The last emperor to control both the eastern and western halves of the empire was Theodosius I. As the century progressed after his death, it became increasingly apparent that the empire had changed in many ways since the time of Augustus. The two-emperor system originally established by Diocletian in the previous century fel ...
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Richard Lovelace (poet)
Richard Lovelace (, homophone of "loveless"; 9 December 1617 – 1657) was an English poet in the seventeenth century. He was a cavalier poet who fought on behalf of Charles I during the English Civil War. His best known works are " To Althea, from Prison", and " To Lucasta, Going to the Warres". Biography Early life and family Richard Lovelace was born on 9 December 1617. His exact birthplace is unknown, and may have been Woolwich, Kent, or Holland.Weidhorn, Manfred. Richard Lovelace. New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1970 He was the oldest son of Sir William Lovelace and Anne Barne Lovelace. He had four brothers and three sisters. His father was from a distinguished military and legal family; the Lovelace family owned a considerable amount of property in Kent. His father, Sir William Lovelace, was a member of the Virginia Company and an incorporator in the second Virginia Company in 1609. He was a soldier and died during the war with Spain and the Dutch Republic in the S ...
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Postumii
The gens Postumia was a noble patrician family at ancient Rome. Throughout the history of the Republic, the Postumii frequently occupied the chief magistracies of the Roman state, beginning with Publius Postumius Tubertus, consul in 505 BC, the fifth year of the Republic. Although like much of the old Roman aristocracy, the Postumii faded for a time into obscurity under the Empire, individuals bearing the name of ''Postumius'' again filled a number of important offices from the second century AD to the end of the Western Empire.''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'', vol. III, p. 510 (" Postumia Gens"). Origin The nomen ''Postumius'' is a patronymic surname, derived from the praenomen ''Postumus'', which presumably belonged to the ancestor of the gens. That name is derived from the Latin adjective, ''postremus'', meaning "last" or "hindmost," originally indicating a last-born or youngest child. However, its meaning has long been confounded with that of ''post ...
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4th-century Roman Poets
The 4th century was the time period from 301 CE (represented by the Roman numerals CCCI) to 400 CE (CD) in accordance with the Julian calendar. In the West, the early part of the century was shaped by Constantine the Great, who became the first Roman emperor to adopt Christianity. Gaining sole reign of the empire, he is also noted for re-establishing a single imperial capital, choosing the site of ancient Byzantium in 330 (over the current capitals, which had effectively been changed by Diocletian's reforms to Milan in the West, and Nicomedeia in the East) to build the city soon called Nova Roma (New Rome); it was later renamed Constantinople in his honor. The last emperor to control both the eastern and western halves of the empire was Theodosius I. As the century progressed after his death, it became increasingly apparent that the empire had changed in many ways since the time of Augustus. The two-emperor system originally established by Diocletian in the previous century fel ...
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