Lucius Coelius Antipater was a Roman

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the U ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. He is not to be confused with Coelius Sabinus, the Coelius of the Digest. He was a contemporary of C. Gracchus (b. c. 123); L. Crassus, the orator, was his pupil.

Style

He was the first who endeavoured to impart to Roman history the ornaments of style, and to make it more than a mere chronicle of events, but his diction was rather vehement and high-sounding than elegant and polished. Pomponius considers him more an orator than a jurist;

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

, on the other hand, prizes him more as a jurist than as an orator or historian.

Writings

None of his juridical writings have been preserved. He wrote a history of the

Second Punic War The Second Punic War (218 to 201 BC) was the second of three wars fought between Carthage and Rome, the two main powers of the western Mediterranean in the 3rd century BC. For 17 years the two states struggled for supremacy, primarily in Ital ...

, and composed

annals Annals ( la, annāles, from , "year") are a concise historical record in which events are arranged chronologically, year by year, although the term is also used loosely for any historical record. Scope The nature of the distinction between ann ...

, which were epitomized by Brutus. Antipater followed the Greek history of Silenus Calatinus, and occasionally borrowed from the '' Origines'' of

Cato the Elder Marcus Porcius Cato (; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor ( la, Censorius), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write hi ...

. He is occasionally quoted by Livy, who sometimes, with respectful consideration, dissents from his authority. It is manifest, however, from Cicero and

Valerius Maximus Valerius Maximus () was a 1st-century Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes: ''Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX'' ("Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings", also known as ''De factis dictisque memorabilibus'' ...

that he was fond of relating dreams and portents.

Editions

Orelli refers to the dissertations on Antipater by Bavius Antius Nauta and G. Groen van Prinsterer, inserted in the Annals of the Academy of Leyderi for 1821. His fragments, several of which are preserved by

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 Plautu ...

, are to be found appended to editions of Sallust by Joseph Wasse, Corte, and Havercamp; and also in Krause's ''Vitae et Fragmenta vet. Histor'', Mom. p. 182, etc.

Reception

Hadrian Hadrian (; la, Caesar Trâiānus Hadriānus ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica (close to modern Santiponce in Spain), a Roman ''municipium'' founded by Italic settlers in Hispania ...

is reported to have preferred him as an historian to

Sallust Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (; 86 – ), was a Roman historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became during the 50s BC a partisa ...

(

Historia Augusta The ''Historia Augusta'' (English: ''Augustan History'') is a late Roman collection of biographies, written in Latin, of the Roman emperors, their junior colleagues, designated heirs and usurpers from 117 to 284. Supposedly modeled on the si ...

, Hadrian, c. 16); by

i. 7. he is designated "certus Romanae historiae auctor" (a reliable authority on Roman history).

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Coelius Antipater, Lucius Ancient Roman jurists Latin historians Second Punic War Coelius Coelius Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Antipater, Lucius