|
Commenta Bernensia
The ''Commenta Bernensia'' and ''Adnotationes Super Lucanum'' are two 9th-century compilations of scholia (explanatory notes) on the Latin poet Lucan's ''Pharsalia''. Lucan's poem was very popular in late antiquity and the middle ages, which created a demand for commentaries and scholia. In the absence of a canonical late antique commentator, the scholia to Lucan were combined and elaborated at will by medieval scribes, creating a very diverse commentary tradition. The ''Commenta'' and ''Adnotationes'', which have layers dating between the 4th and 9th century CE, are among the earliest such commentaries, and contain much information found nowhere else in classical literature. Background Manuscript transmission of Lucan Lucan's ''Pharsalia'' (the poet's only surviving, certainly-attributed work) was an intensely popular text from late antiquity to the middle ages, especially as a school text. The historical subject matter (Caesar's civil war) and heightened style appealed to read ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Codex Bernensis (Adnotationes Super Lucanum)
The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now reserved for older manuscript books, which mostly used sheets of vellum, parchment, or papyrus, rather than paper. By convention, the term is also used for any Aztec codex (although the earlier examples do not actually use the codex format), Maya codices and other pre-Columbian manuscripts. Library practices have led to many European manuscripts having "codex" as part of their usual name, as with the Codex Gigas, while most do not. Modern books are divided into paperback (or softback) and those bound with stiff boards, called hardbacks. Elaborate historical bindings are called treasure bindings. At least in the Western world, the main alternative to the paged codex format for a long document was the continuous scroll, which was the domina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vacca (grammarian)
Vacca was a 6th-century grammarian who studied and commented on the works of Lucan. Little is known of Vacca other than that he wrote ''Vita Lucani'' (''Life of Lucan''), which is not to be confused with Suetonius' ''Vita Lucani''. Vacca's commentaries were used in the medieval study of Lucan. Though he is not named, evidence of Vacca's writing appears in the 10th-century works ''Commenta Bernensia'' and ''Adnotationes super Lucanum''. Vacca's ''Life of Lucan'' gives sole accounts of many of Lucan's lost works, as well as accounts of the feud between Lucan and Nero, which agrees with Tacitus' and contradicts Suetonius Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is ''De vita Caesarum'', common ...'. External links *''M. Annaei Lucani Pharsalia'', Petrus-Augustus Lemaire (ed.), vol. 1, Parisiis, colligebat Nicola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philipp Jaffé
Philipp Jaffé (17 February 1819 – 3 April 1870) was a German historian and philologist. He was one of the most important German medievalists of the 19th century. Biography and career After graduating from the gymnasium at Posen in 1838 he went to Berlin, entering a banking-house. Two years later he abandoned commercial life and studied at Humboldt University of Berlin (Ph.D. 1844). Seven years later appeared his great work, ''Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab Condita Ecclesia ad Annum p. Ch. n. 1198'', containing 11,000 papal documents, (Berlin, 1851. 2nd ed. by Löwenfeld, Kaltenbrunner, and Ewald. Leipzig, 1885–88). This work made him well known, but he had still to earn a livelihood; he therefore again entered the university, this time as a student of medicine, at Berlin and later at Vienna. Graduating as M.D. from Berlin in 1853, he engaged in practise in that city for a year, and then became one of the editors of the ''Monumenta Germaniae Historica.'' This position he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timosthenes
Timosthenes of Rhodes (Greek: ) (fl. 270 BCE) was a Greek navigator, geographer and admiral in Ptolemaic navy. He is credited with inventing the system of twelve winds that became known as the Greek 12-wind rose. Career In the 280s–270s BCE, Timosthenes served as the admiral and chief pilot of the Ptolemaic navy of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt. He wrote a periplus (a book of sailing directions) in ten books (now lost), and was much admired and cited by other geographers such as Eratosthenes and Strabo. Indeed, Marcian of Heraclea went so far as to accuse Eratosthenes' ''Geographica'' of being nothing but the wholesale plagiarism of Timosthenes work. Strabo says only that Eratosthenes preferred Timosthenes "above any other writer, though he often decides even against him." According to the later Greek geographer Agathemerus (fl.250 CE), Timosthenes of Rhodes developed a system of twelve winds. Timosthenes introduced the complete 12-point classical compass winds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taranis
Taranis (sometimes Taranus or Tanarus) is a Celtic thunder god attested in literary and epigraphic sources. The Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'' mentions Taranis, Esus, and Teutates as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans. This rare mention of Celtic gods under their native names in a Latin text has been the subject of much comment. Almost as often commented on are the scholia to Lucan's poem (early medieval, but relying on earlier sources) which tell us the nature of these sacrifices: in particular, that the victims of Taranis were burned in a hollow wooden container. This sacrifice has been compared with the wicker man described by Caesar. These scholia also tell us that Taranis was perhaps either equated by the Romans with Dis Pater, Roman god of the underworld, or Jupiter, Roman god of weather. Scholars have preferred the latter equation to the former, as Taranis is also equated with Jupiter in inscriptions. Both identifications have been studied against Caes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esus
Esus is a Celtic god known from iconographic, epigraphic, and literary sources. The 1st-century CE Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'' mentions Esus, Taranis, and Teutates as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans. This rare mention of Celtic gods under their native names in a Greco-Roman text has been the subject of much comment. Almost as often commented on are Commenta Bernensia and Adnotationes Super Lucanum, the scholia to Lucan's poem (early medieval, but relying on earlier sources) which tell us the nature of these sacrifices: in particular, that Esus's victims were suspended from a tree and bloodily dismembered. The nature of this ritual is obscure, but it has been compared with a wide range of sources, including Welsh mythology, Welsh and Germanic mythology, as well as with the violent end of the Lindow Man. Esus has been connected (through an inscription which identifies him and an allied character, Tarvos Trigaranos, by name) with a pictorial myth on the Pillar o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teutates
Teutates (spelled variously Toutatis, Totatis, Totates) is a Celtic god attested in literary and epigraphic sources. His name, which is derived from a proto-Celtic word meaning "tribe", suggests he was a tribal deity. The Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'' mentions Teutates, Esus, and Taranis as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans. This rare mention of Celtic gods under their native names in a Latin text has been the subject of much comment. Almost as often commented on are the scholia to Lucan's poem (early medieval, but relying on earlier sources) which tell us the nature of these sacrifices: in particular, that victims of Teutates were immersed headfirst into a small barrel and drowned. This sacrifice has been compared with a poorly understood ritual depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron, some motifs in Irish mythology, and the death of the bog body known as the Lindow Man. Teutates appears in a number of inscriptions, most of which have been found in border or f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus ("Varro of Rieti") to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus ("Varro of Aude (river), Atax"). Biography Varro was born in or near Reate (now Rieti in Lazio) into a family thought to be of Equites, equestrian rank. He always remained close to his roots in the area, owning a large farm in the Reatine plain (reported as near Lago di Ripasottile,) until his old age. He supported Pompey, reaching the office of praetor, after having served as tribune of the plebs, tribune of the people, ''quaestor'' and ''curule aedile''. It is probable that Varro was discontented with the course on which Pompey entered when the First Triumvirate formed 60 BC, and he may thus have lost his chance of rising to the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Livy
Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on good terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and was a friend of Augustus. Livy encouraged Augustus’s young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, to take up the writing of history. Life Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy, now modern Padua, probably in 59 BC. At the time of his birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula, and the largest in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). Cisalpine Gaul was merged into Italy proper during his lifetime and its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship by Julius Caesar. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection and pride for Patavium, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (, ; –35 BC), was a historian and politician of the Roman Republic from a plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became a partisan of Julius Caesar (100 to 44 BC), circa 50s BC. He is the earliest known Latin-language Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which ''Conspiracy of Catiline'' on the eponymous conspiracy, ''The Jugurthine War'' on the eponymous war, and the ''Histories'' (of which only fragments survive) remain extant. As a writer, Sallust was primarily influenced by the works of the 5th-century BC Greek historian Thucydides. During his political career he amassed great and ill-gotten wealth from his governorship of Africa. Life and career Sallust was probably born in Amiternum in Central Italy,.. though Eduard Schwartz takes the view that Sallust's birthplace was Rome. His birth date is calculated from the report of Jerome's '' Chronicon''.. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Roman Empire
In historiography, the Late or Later Roman Empire, traditionally covering the period from 284 CE to 641 CE, was a time of significant transformation in Roman governance, society, and religion. Diocletian's reforms, including the establishment of the tetrarchy, aimed to address the vastness of the empire and internal instability. The rise of Christianity, legalized by Constantine the Great in 313 CE, profoundly changed the religious landscape, becoming a central force in Roman life. Simultaneously, barbarian invasions, particularly by the Goths and the Huns, weakened the Western Roman Empire, which collapsed in 476 CE. In contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire endured, evolving into the Byzantine Empire and laying the foundations for medieval Europe. This article ends with the Arab conquest of Egypt in 641 CE and the beginning of the Byzantine Dark Ages. Evidence Histories In comparison with previous periods, studies on Later Roman history are based on diverse but mainly biased wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermann Usener
Hermann Karl Usener (23 October 1834 – 21 October 1905) was a German scholar in the fields of philology and comparative religion. Life Hermann Usener was born at Weilburg and educated at its Gymnasium. From 1853 he studied at Heidelberg, Munich, Göttingen and Bonn. In 1858 he had a teaching position at the Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium in Berlin. He was Professor 1861 to 1863 at the University of Bern, then at the University of Greifswald, before becoming professor at the University of Bonn. The ''Bonn School'' of classical philology was led by Usener with Franz Buecheler. Influence Usener was a large-scale thinker who combined scholarly research with theoretical reflection. His research on the ancient world used a comparative method, drawing on a variety of ethnological material for the study of social and religious matters. His theoretical method was phenomenological or hermeneutical, and centred on social psychology and cultural history. He was influential most o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
