Sextus Pompeius Festus - De verborum significatu - 1700

Sextus Pompeius Festus, usually known simply as Festus, was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

grammarian Grammarian may refer to: * Alexandrine grammarians, philologists and textual scholars in Hellenistic Alexandria in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE * Biblical grammarians, scholars who study the Bible and the Hebrew language * Grammarian (Greco-Roman ...

who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo (

Narbonne Narbonne ( , , ; ; ; Late Latin:) is a commune in Southern France in the Occitanie region. It lies from Paris in the Aude department, of which it is a sub-prefecture. It is located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was ...

) in

Gaul Gaul () was a region of Western Europe first clearly described by the Roman people, Romans, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany, and Northern Italy. It covered an area of . Ac ...

Work

He made a 20-volume

epitome An epitome (; , from ἐπιτέμνειν ''epitemnein'' meaning "to cut short") is a summary or miniature form, or an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment. Epitomacy represents "to the degree of." A ...

Verrius Flaccus Marcus Verrius Flaccus (c. 55 BCAD 20) was a Roman grammarian and teacher who flourished under Augustus and Tiberius. Life He was a freedman, and his manumitter has been identified with Verrius Flaccus, an authority on pontifical law; but for ...

's voluminous and encyclopedic treatise '' De verborum significatione''. Flaccus had been a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the reign of

Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian (), was the founder of the Roman Empire, who reigned as the first Roman emperor from 27 BC until his death in A ...

. Festus gives the

etymology Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...

as well as the meaning of many words, and his work throws considerable light on the language, mythology and antiquities of ancient

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

. He made a few alterations, and inserted some critical remarks of his own. He also omitted such ancient

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

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 already in a state of flux and change. Of Flaccus' work only a few fragments remain; of Festus' ''epitome'', only one damaged, fragmentary manuscript. The remainder, further abridged, survives in a summary made at the close of the 8th century by

Paul the Deacon Paul the Deacon ( 720s 13 April in 796, 797, 798, or 799 AD), also known as ''Paulus Diaconus'', ''Warnefridus'', ''Barnefridus'', or ''Winfridus'', and sometimes suffixed ''Cassinensis'' (''i.e.'' "of Monte Cassino"), was a Benedictine monk, sc ...

. The Festus Lexicon Project has summed up Paul's ''epitome'' of Festus' ''De Verborum Significatu'' as follows:

Manuscript

The 11th-century ''Codex Farnesianus'' at

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

is the sole surviving manuscript of Festus. It was rediscovered in 1436 at

Speyer Speyer (, older spelling ; ; ), historically known in English as Spires, is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate in the western part of the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany with approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Located on the left bank of the r ...

by the Venetian humanist and bishop Pietro Donato. When he found it, half of the manuscript was already missing, so that it only contains the alphabetized entries M-V, and not in perfect condition. During the 15th century it has been scorched by fire and then disassembled by the antiquarian humanist

Julius Pomponius Laetus Julius Pomponius Laetus (1428 – 9 June 1498), also known as Giulio Pomponio Leto, was an Italian humanist. Background Laetus was born at Teggiano, near Salerno, the illegitimate scion of the princely house of Sanseverino, the German historian ...

. Collating these fragmentary abridgments, and republishing them with translations, is a project being coordinated at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, with several objectives: to make this information available in usable form, to stimulate debate on Festus and on the Augustan antiquarian tradition upon which he drew, and to enrich and to renew studies on Roman life, about which Festus provides essential information.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Acciarino, D. 2016. "The Renaissance Editions of Festus: Fulvio Orsini's Version." ''Acta Classica'' 59: 1-22. * Cornell, Timothy J. 2014. "Festus." In ''The Fragments of the Roman Historians.'' Vol. 1, Introduction. Edited by Timothy J. Cornell, 67–68. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press. * Dahm, Murray K. 1999. "A Hendiadys in the Breviarum of Festus: A Literary Festus?" ''Prudentia: A Journal Devoted to the Intellectual History of the Ancient World.'' 31.1: 15–22. * Glinister, Fay, and Clare Woods, with John A. North and Michael H. Crawford. 2007. ''Verrius, Festus, and Paul: Lexicography, Scholarship, and Society.'' Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London Supplement 93. London: Institute of Classical Studies. * Lamers, Han. 2013. "Creating Room for Doubt: A Reexamination of the editorship of Festus' "Collectanea" (Rome, 1475)." ''Philologus'' 157:374–378. * Lindsay, Wallace Martin. 1996. ''Studies in Early Mediaeval Latin Glossaries.'' Edited by Michael Lapidge. Variorum Collected Studies Series 467. Aldershot, UK: Variorum. * Loew, Elias Avery. 1911. "The Naples MS. of Festus: Its Home and Date." ''Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift'' 31:917–918. *Marshall, Peter K. 1983. "Sex. Pompeius Festus." In ''Texts and transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics.'' Edited by Leighton D. Reynolds, 162–164. Oxford: Clarendon. * North, John. 2008. "Restoring Festus from Paul's Epitome." ''Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae'' 48.1–2: 157–170. * Schmidt, Peter Lebrecht. 2004. "Festus." In ''Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World.'' Vol. 5, Equ–Has. Edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, 407. Leiden, The Netherlands, and Boston: Brill.

External links