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Gellius
Aulus Gellius (c. 125after 180 AD) was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his ''Attic Nights'', a commonplace book, or compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, history, antiquarianism, and other subjects, preserving fragments of the works of many authors who might otherwise be unknown today. Name Medieval manuscripts of the ''Noctes Atticae'' commonly gave the author's name in the form of "Agellius", which is used by Priscian; Lactantius, Servius and Saint Augustine had "A. Gellius" instead. Scholars from the Renaissance onwards hotly debated which one of the two transmitted names is correct (the other one being presumably a corruption) before settling on the latter of the two in modern times. Life The only source for the life of Aulus Gellius is the details recorded in his writings. Internal evidence points to Gellius having been born between AD 125 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Androcles
Androcles (, alternatively spelled Androclus in Latin) is the main character of a common folk tale about a man befriending a lion. The tale is included in the Aarne–Thompson classification system as type 156. The story reappeared in the Middle Ages as "The Shepherd and the Lion" and was then ascribed to Aesop's Fables. It is numbered 563 in the Perry Index and can be compared to Aesop's '' The Lion and the Mouse'' in both its general trend and in its moral of the reciprocal nature of mercy. Classical tale The earliest surviving account of the Androcles episode is found in Aulus Gellius's 2nd century ''Attic Nights''. The author relates there a story told by Apion in his lost work ''Aegyptiaca''/Αἰγυπτιακά ''(Wonders of Egypt)'', the events of which Apion claimed to have personally witnessed in Rome. In this version, Androclus (going by the Latin variation of the name) is a runaway slave of a former Roman consul administering a part of Rome. He takes shelte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
Leofranc Holford-Strevens (born 19 May 1946) is an English classical scholar, an authority on the works of Aulus Gellius, and a former reader for the Oxford University Press. He is married to the American musicologist Bonnie J. Blackburn. Career After Southgate County Grammar School, in 1963 Holford-Strevens attended Christ Church, Oxford, to study Literae Humaniores (a form of classical studies), and stayed on to obtain his doctorate there with a dissertation entitled ''Select Commentary on Aulus Gellius, Book 2'' (1971). In 1971 Holford-Strevens started work with the Oxford University Press as a graduate proof reader and later rose to become consultant scholar-editor there. His first book-length publication, ''Aulus Gellius'', was published in 1988. Holford-Strevens's book was hailed by Hugh Lloyd-Jones as a masterpiece characterized by a "sharp critical intelligence". More generally, Lloyd-Jones stated that Holford-Strevens was one of the most learned men in England, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calvisius Taurus
Lucius Calvenus Taurus (, also Calvisius Taurus; fl. second century AD) was a Greek philosopher of the Middle Platonist school. Biography Taurus was a native of Berytos (present-day Beirut) and, according to Jerome, reached the age of forty in the year 145, so he would have been born around 105. He lived in Athens, where he ran a Platonist school in the tradition of the Academy from his home. Two of his students are known by name: the politician Herodes Atticus and the writer Aulus Gellius. The latter accompanied Taurus on his journey to Delphi, where the pair were spectators at the Pythian Games and Taurus obtained citizenship. This voyage was traditionally dated to 163, but its dating is now considered uncertain. Gellius is one of the main sources for Taurus's life and works, providing anecdotes and accounts of dinner conversations. Gellius, though, never qualified for advanced courses in philosophy, and his dialogues involving Taurus contain some literary embellishments. In thes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Favorinus
Favorinus (c. 80 – c. 160 AD) was a Roman sophist and skeptic philosopher who flourished during the reign of Hadrian and the Second Sophistic. Early life He was of Gaulish ancestry, born in Arelate (Arles). He received a refined education, first in Gallia Narbonensis and then in Rome, and at an early age began his lifelong travels through Greece, Italy and the East. Career Favorinus had extensive knowledge, combined with great oratorical powers, that raised him to eminence both in Athens and in Rome. He lived on close terms with Plutarch, with Herodes Atticus, to whom he bequeathed his library in Rome, with Demetrius the Cynic, Cornelius Fronto, Aulus Gellius, and with the emperor Hadrian. His great rival was Polemon of Smyrna, whom he vigorously attacked in his later years. He knew Greek very well. After being silenced by Hadrian in an argument in which the sophist might easily have refuted his adversary, Favorinus subsequently explained that it was foolish to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peregrinus Proteus
Peregrinus Proteus (; c. 95 – 165 AD) was a Greek Cynic philosopher, from Parium in Mysia. Leaving home at a young age, he first lived with the Christians in Palestine. After being expelled from that community he adopted the life of a Cynic philosopher and eventually settled in Greece. Peregrinus is most remembered for his suicide after giving his own funeral oration, cremating himself on a funeral pyre at the Olympic Games in 165. By 180 AD, a statue of Peregrinus had been erected in his home city of Parium; it was reputed to have oracular powers. Life Lucian's satirical biography The only detailed account of the life of Peregrinus was recorded by Lucian in his satire, ''The Death of Peregrinus'' (). Although this account is hostile to Peregrinus, the bare facts of his life can be extracted. Peregrinus was born in Parium, c. 95 AD. At a young age he was suspected of parricide, and was obliged to leave his native home. During his wanderings he reached Palestine, he came into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Cornelius Fronto
Marcus Cornelius Fronto (c. 100late 160s AD), best known as Fronto, was a Roman grammarian, rhetorician, and advocate. Of Berber origin, he was born at Cirta (modern-day Constantine, Algeria) in Numidia. He was suffect consul for the '' nundinium'' of July–August 142 with Gaius Laberius Priscus as his colleague. Emperor Antoninus Pius appointed him tutor to his adopted sons, the future emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Life Fronto was born a Roman citizen in the year 100 in the Numidian capital, Cirta. He described himself as a Libyan of the nomadic Libyans. He was taught as a child by the Greek paedagogus Aridelus. Later, he continued his education at Rome with the philosopher Athenodotus and the orator Dionysius. He soon gained such renown as an advocate and orator as to be reckoned inferior only to Cicero. He amassed a large fortune, erected magnificent buildings, and purchased the famous gardens of Maecenas. In 142 he was consul for two months (August and Sep ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herodes Atticus
Herodes Atticus (; AD 101–177) was an Athenian rhetorician, as well as a Roman senator. A great philanthropic magnate, he and his wife Appia Annia Regilla, for whose murder he was potentially responsible, commissioned many Athenian public works, several of which stand to the present day. He was one of the best-known figures of the Antonine Period, and taught rhetoric to the Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, and was advanced to the consulship in 143. His full name as a Roman citizen was Lucius Vibullius Hipparchus Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes. According to Philostratus, Herodes Atticus, in possession of the best education that money could buy, was a notable proponent of the Second Sophistic. Having gone through the '' cursus honorum ''of civil posts, he demonstrated a talent for civil engineering, especially the design and construction of water-supply systems. The Nymphaeum at Olympia was one of his dearest projects. However, he never lost sight of p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonius Marcellus
Nonius Marcellus was a Roman grammarian of the 4th or 5th century AD. His only surviving work is the ''De compendiosa doctrina'', a dictionary or encyclopedia in 20 books that shows his interests in antiquarianism and Latin literature from Plautus to Apuleius. Nonius may have come from Africa. Life Little is known about Nonius. The full title of his work, ''Noni Marcelli Peripatetici Tubursicensis de Conpendiosa Doctrina ad filium'', indicates that he was a Peripatetic philosopher from Thubursicum in Numidia. An inscription at Thubursicum dedicated by a certain "Nonius Marcellus Herculius" in 323 AD indicates that his family was based in that area. Since Nonius does not mention Christianity and calls himself a peripatetic, he seems not to have converted. Nonius quotes Aulus Gellius and other 2nd-century compilers, and is himself quoted and praised three times by Priscian in the 5th century, and so must have lived between these dates. According to the ''Cambridge History of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aesop
Aesop ( ; , ; c. 620–564 BCE; formerly rendered as Æsop) was a Greeks, Greek wikt:fabulist, fabulist and Oral storytelling, storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as ''Aesop's Fables''. Although his existence remains unclear and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day. Many of the tales associated with him are characterized by anthropomorphic animal characters. Scattered details of Aesop's life can be found in ancient sources, including Aristotle, Herodotus, and Plutarch. An ancient literary work called ''The Aesop Romance'' tells an episodic, probably highly fictional version of his life, including the traditional description of him as a strikingly ugly Slavery in Ancient Greece, slave () who by his cleverness acquires freedom and becomes an adviser to kings and city-states. Older spellings of his name have included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commonplace Book
Commonplace books (or commonplaces) are a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into blank books. They have been kept from antiquity, and were kept particularly during the Renaissance and in the nineteenth century. Such books are similar to scrapbooks filled with items of many kinds: notes, proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, prayers, legal formulas, and recipes. Entries are most often organized under systematic subject headings and differ functionally from journals or diaries, which are chronological and introspective. Overview "Commonplace" is a translation of the Latin term ''locus communis'' (from Greek ''tópos koinós'', see literary topos) which means "a general or common place", such as a statement of proverbial wisdom. In this original sense, commonplace books were collections of such sayings, such as John Milton's example. "Commonplace book" is at times used with an expansive sense, refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antiquarianism
An antiquarian or antiquary () is an aficionado or student of antiquities or things of the past. More specifically, the term is used for those who study history with particular attention to ancient artefacts, archaeological and historic sites, or historic archives and manuscripts. The essence of antiquarianism is a focus on the empirical evidence of the past, and is perhaps best encapsulated in the motto adopted by the 18th-century antiquary Sir Richard Colt Hoare, "We speak from facts, not theory." The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' first cites "archaeologist" from 1824; this soon took over as the usual term for one major branch of antiquarian activity. "Archaeology", from 1607 onwards, initially meant what is now seen as "ancient history" generally, with the narrower modern sense first seen in 1837. Today the term "antiquarian" is often used in a pejorative sense, to refer to an excessively narrow focus on factual historical trivia, to the exclusion of a sense of histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sulpicius Apollinaris
Sulpicius Apollinaris was a learned grammarian of Carthage who flourished in the 2nd century AD. He taught Pertinax, himself a teacher of grammar before he was emperor, and Aulus Gellius, who speaks of him in the highest terms. He is the reputed author of the metrical arguments to the ''Aeneid'' and to the plays of Terence and (probably) Plautus Titus Maccius Plautus ( ; 254 – 184 BC) was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest Latin literary works to have survived in their entirety. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by Livius Andro .... (J. W. Beck, ''De Sulpicio Apollinari'', 1884) See also * Sulpicia (gens) References 2nd-century Romans 2nd-century writers Grammarians of Latin Sulpicii {{AncientRome-writer-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
