Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus was a Roman poet thought to have been a native of
Carthage
Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...
and flourished about AD 283. He was a popular poet at the court of the Roman emperor
Carus
Marcus Aurelius Carus (c. 222 – July or August 283) was Roman emperor from 282 to 283. During his short reign, Carus fought the Germanic tribes and Sarmatians along the Danube frontier with success.
He died while campaigning against th ...
(
Historia Augusta, ''Carus'', 11).
Works
The works below are by, or sometimes attributed to, Nemesianus
Didactic poetry
Nemesianus wrote poems on the arts of fishing (''Halieutica''), aquatics (''Nautica'') and hunting (''
Cynegetica''), but only a fragment of the last, 325
hexameter lines, has been preserved. It is neatly expressed in good
Latin, and was used as a school textbook in the 9th century AD.
Two fragments exist of a poem about bird catching (''De aucupio''), which are sometimes attributed to Nemesianus, although this attribution is considered doubtful.
[Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A. (eds) (1996), the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. p 1033]
The Eclogues
Four
eclogue
An eclogue is a poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject. Poems in the genre are sometimes also called bucolics.
Overview
The form of the word ''eclogue'' in contemporary English developed from Middle English , which came from Latin , wh ...
s, formerly attributed to
Titus Calpurnius Siculus
Titus Calpurnius Siculus was a Roman bucolic poet. Eleven eclogues have been handed down to us under his name, of which the last four, from metrical considerations and express manuscript testimony, are now generally attributed to Nemesianus, who li ...
, are now generally considered to be by Nemesianus.
The Praise of Hercules
The ''Praise of Hercules'', sometimes printed in
Claudian
Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian (; c. 370 – c. 404 AD), was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost ent ...
's works, may be by him.
Editions
Complete edition of the works attributed to him in
Emil Baehrens, ''Poetae Latini Minores'', iii. (1881); ''Cynegetica'': ed.
Moritz Haupt
Moriz or Moritz Haupt (27 July 1808 – 5 February 1874), was a German philologist.
Biography
He was born at Zittau, Lusatia, Saxony. His early education was mainly conducted by his father, Ernst Friedrich Haupt, burgomaster of Zittau, a man ...
(with
Ovid's ''Halieutica'' and
Grattius
Grattius (or Gratius) Faliscus was a Roman poet who flourished during the life of Augustus (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 i ...
) 1838, and R. Stern, with Grattius (1832); Italian translation with notes by L. F. Valdrighi (1876). The
four eclogues are printed with those of
Calpurnius in the editions of H. Schenkl (1885) and Charles Haines Keene (1887); see L. Cisorio, ''Studio sulle Egloghe di Nemesiano'' (1895) and ''Dell' imitazione nelle Egloghe di Nemesiano'' (1896); and M. Haupt, ''De Carminibus Bucolicis Calpurnii et Nemesiani'' (1853), the chief treatise on the subject. The text of the ''Cynegetica'', the ''
Eclogues
The ''Eclogues'' (; ), also called the ''Bucolics'', is the first of the three major works of the Latin poet Virgil.
Background
Taking as his generic model the Greek bucolic poetry of Theocritus, Virgil created a Roman version partly by offer ...
'', and the doubtful ''Fragment on Bird-Catching'' were published in Vol. II of ''Minor Latin Poets'' (
Loeb Classical Library with English translations (1934).
See also
*
Tiberianus (poet)
Tiberianus was a late Latin writer and poet, surviving only in fragments, who experimented with various metrical schemes.
He is a possible candidate for the authorship of the ''Pervigilium Veneris''.H J Rose, ''A Handbook of Latin Literature'' (Lo ...
References
*
External links
Nemesianus Latin text and English translations in the Loeb edition, at
LacusCurtius.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nemesianus
Roman-era poets
Post–Silver Age Latin writers
3rd-century Romans
3rd-century poets
Aurelii
3rd-century Latin writers