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De Verborum Significatu
''De verborum significatione libri XX'' ('Twenty Books on the Meaning of Words'), also known as the ''Lexicon of Festus'', is an epitome compiled, edited, and annotated by Sextus Pompeius Festus from the encyclopedic works of Verrius Flaccus. Festus' epitome is typically dated to the 2nd century, but the work only survives in an incomplete 11th-century manuscript and copies of its own separate epitome. Background Verrius Flaccus was a prominent Roman grammarian known for his writings on the Latin language and for tutoring the grandsons of Caesar Augustus during his reign. He is best known for ''De verborum significatu'', the name which Festus later adopted for his epitome, the first major alphabetical Latin dictionary. The 40-volume lexicon is regarded as among the most important such works of classical antiquity, though all but a few fragments of the original have been lost, perhaps in part due to its impractical size. Sextus Pompeius Festus, also a grammarian, likely flouris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sextus Pompeius Festus
Sextus Pompeius Festus, usually known simply as Festus, was a Roman grammarian who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo (Narbonne) in Gaul. Work He made a 20-volume epitome of Verrius Flaccus's voluminous and encyclopedic treatise '' De verborum significatione''. Flaccus had been a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the reign of Augustus. Festus gives the etymology as well as the meaning of many words, and his work throws considerable light on the language, mythology and antiquities of ancient Rome. He made a few alterations, and inserted some critical remarks of his own. He also omitted such ancient Latin words as had long been obsolete; these he apparently discussed in a separate work now lost, entitled ''Priscorum verborum cum exemplis''. Even incomplete, Festus' lexicon reflects at second hand the enormous intellectual effort that had been made in the Augustan Age to put together information on the traditions of the Roman world, which was alrea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of The Roman Empire
The history of the Roman Empire covers the history of ancient Rome from the fall of the Roman Republic in 27 BC until the abdication of Romulus Augustulus in AD 476 in the West, and the Fall of Constantinople in the East in AD 1453. Ancient Rome became a territorial empire while still a republic, but was then ruled by Roman emperors beginning with Augustus (), becoming the Roman Empire following the death of the last republican dictator, the first emperor's adoptive father Julius Caesar. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the Roman Republic in the 6th century BC, though it did not expand outside the Italian Peninsula until the 3rd century BC. Civil war engulfed the Roman state in the mid 1st century BC, first between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and finally between Octavian and Mark Antony. Antony was defeated at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. In 27 BC, the Senate made Octavian ''imperator'' ("commander") thus beginning the Principate, the first epoch of Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Servius Sulpicius Rufus
Servius Sulpicius Rufus (c. 105 BC – 43 BC), was a Roman orator and jurist. He was consul in 51 BC. Biography Early life He studied rhetoric with Cicero, accompanying him to Rhodes in 78 BC, though Sulpicius decided subsequently to pursue legal studies. In the later dialogue '' Brutus'', Cicero praised the artistry of his legal learning as well as his eloquence. Career In 63 BC, Sulpicius was a candidate for the consulship, but was defeated by Lucius Licinius Murena, whom he subsequently accused of bribery. In Cicero's successful oration in defense of Murena against the accusations, he mocked Sulpicius' legal expertise despite their friendship. Nevertheless, in 52 BC Sulpicius successfully stood for election to be consul in 51 BC. In the Civil War, Sulpicius was a supporter of Pompey, while his son joined Julius Caesar. Caesar made him proconsul of Achaea in 46 BC. He died in 43 BC while on a mission () from the senate to Marcus Antonius at Mutina, and was eulogized in Cicer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quintus Cornificius
Quintus Cornificius (died 42 BC) was an ancient Roman of senatorial rank from the '' gens'' Cornificia. He was a general, orator and poet, a friend of Catullus and a correspondent of Cicero. He was also an augur. He wrote a now lost epyllion titled ''Glaucus''.Theodore John Cadoux and Robin J. Seager, "Cornificius, Quintus", in Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds., ''The Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 3rd rev. ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). During the Roman civil war of 49–45 BC, Cornificius sided with Julius Caesar against Gnaeus Pompeius. As ''quaestor pro praetore'' for Illyricum in 48 BC, he recovered the province and defended it against the attacks of Pompeius' fleet. In 46, he was sent to Cilicia, probably as ''legatus pro praetore'', and then to Syria, where he prosecuted the war against Quintus Caecilius Bassus. In 45 BC, he was made a ''praetor'' and in the summer of 44 BC, after the assassination of Caesar, he was appointed governor of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucius Accius
Lucius Accius (; 170 – c. 86 BC), or Lucius Attius, was a Roman tragic poet and literary scholar. Accius was born in 170 BC at Pisaurum, a town founded in the Ager Gallicus in 184 BC. He was the son of a freedman and a freedwoman, probably from Rome. The year of his death is unknown, but he must have lived to a great age, since Cicero (born 106 BC, hence 64 years younger) writes of having conversed with him on literary matters. Literary works Accius was a prolific writer and enjoyed a very high reputation. The titles and considerable fragments (about 700 lines) of some fifty plays have been preserved. Judging from the titles and fragments, scholars have surmised that most, if not all, of these poems were tragic in nature, although Pliny the Younger ranks him among the erotic poets. His career as a poet can be traced over the course of 36 years from B.C. 140, to B.C. 104. Most of his poetical works were imitations or free translations of the Greek, especially Aeschylus. The e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History (Pliny)
The ''Natural History'' ( la, Naturalis historia) is a work by Pliny the Elder. The largest single work to have survived from the Roman Empire to the modern day, the ''Natural History'' compiles information gleaned from other ancient authors. Despite the work's title, its subject area is not limited to what is today understood by natural history; Pliny himself defines his scope as "the natural world, or life". It is encyclopedic in scope, but its structure is not like that of a modern encyclopedia. It is the only work by Pliny to have survived, and the last that he published. He published the first 10 books in AD 77, but had not made a final revision of the remainder at the time of his death during the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. The rest was published posthumously by Pliny's nephew, Pliny the Younger. The work is divided into 37 books, organised into 10 volumes. These cover topics including astronomy, mathematics, geography, ethnography, anthropology, human physio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pliny The Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' Naturalis Historia'' (''Natural History''), which became an editorial model for encyclopedias. He spent most of his spare time studying, writing, and investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus: Among Pliny's greatest works was the twenty-volume work ''Bella Germaniae'' ("The History of the German Wars"), which is no longer extant. ''Bella Germaniae'', which began where Aufidius Bassus' ''Libri Belli Germanici'' ("The War with the Germans") left off, was used as a source by other prominent Roman historians, including Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius. Tacitus—who many scholars agree had never travelled in Germania—used ''Bella Ger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marcus Terentius Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) 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 Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus. Biography Varro was born in or near Reate (now Rieti) to a family thought to be of equestrian rank, and 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 been 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 was formed, and he may thus have lost his chance of rising to the consulate. He actually ridiculed the coalition in a work entitled the ''Three-Headed Monster'' ( in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renaissance Humanism
Renaissance humanism was a revival in the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. During the period, the term ''humanist'' ( it, umanista) referred to teachers and students of the humanities, known as the , which included grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy. It was not until the 19th century that this began to be called ''humanism'' instead of the original ''humanities'', and later by the retronym ''Renaissance humanism'' to distinguish it from later humanist developments. During the Renaissance period most humanists were Christians, so their concern was to "purify and renew Christianity", not to do away with it. Their vision was to return '' ad fontes'' ("to the sources") to the simplicity of the New Testament, bypassing the complexities of medieval theology. Under the influence and inspiration of the classics, humanists developed a new rhetoric and new learning. Some s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity. Proponents of a "long Renaissance" argue that it started around the year 1300 and lasted until about 1600. In some fields, a Proto-Renaissance, beginning around 1250, is typically accepted. The French word ''renaissance'' (corresponding to ''rinascimento'' in Italian) means 'rebirth', and defines the period as one of cultural revival and renewed interest in classical antiquity after the centuries during what Renaissance humanists labelled as the "Dark Ages". The Renaissance author Giorgio Vasari used the term ''rinascita'' 'rebirth' in his '' Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects'' in 1550, but the concept became widespread only in the 19th century, after the work of sch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abbey Of Saint Gall
The Abbey of Saint Gall (german: Abtei St. Gallen) is a dissolved abbey (747–1805) in a Catholic religious complex in the city of St. Gallen in Switzerland. The Carolingian-era monastery existed from 719, founded by Saint Othmar on the spot where Gallus had erected his hermitage. It became an independent principality between 9th and 13th centuries, and was for many centuries one of the chief Benedictine abbeys in Europe. The library of the Abbey is one of the oldest monastic libraries in the world. The city of St. Gallen originated as an adjoining settlement of the abbey. The abbey was secularized around 1800, and in 1848 its former church became a Cathedral. Since 1983 the abbey precinct has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. History Foundation Around 612 Gallus, according to tradition an Irish monk and disciple and companion of Saint Columbanus, established a hermitage on the site that would become the monastery. He lived in his cell until his death in 646, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Nettleship
Henry Nettleship (5 May 1839 – 10 July 1893) was an English classical scholar. Life Nettleship was born at Kettering, and was educated at Lancing College, Durham School and Charterhouse schools, and gained a scholarship for entry to Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1858. In 1861, he was elected to a fellowship at Lincoln, which he vacated on his marriage in 1870 to Matilda Steel, eldest daughter of his colleague Rev. T.H. Steel at Harrow. In 1868, he became an assistant master at Harrow, but in 1873 he returned to Oxford, and was elected to a fellowship at Corpus. In 1878 he was appointed to succeed Edwin Palmer as the Corpus Professor of Latin, and held the post till his death. In 1879, Nettleship sat in the committee which was formed to create an Oxford women's college "in which no distinction will be made between students on the ground of their belonging to different religious denominations." This resulted in the founding of Somerville Hall (later Somerville College). He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
