Quintus Remmius Palaemon or Quintus Rhemnius Fannius Palaemon
[.] was a
Roman grammarian and a native of
Vicentia. He lived during the reigns of
Emperors
The word ''emperor'' (from , via ) can mean the male ruler of an empire. ''Empress'', the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother/grandmother (empress dowager/ grand empress dowager), or a woman who rule ...
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus ( ; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was Roman emperor from AD 14 until 37. He succeeded his stepfather Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC to Roman politician Tiberius Cl ...
and
Claudius
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...
.
Life
From
Suetonius
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (), commonly referred to as Suetonius ( ; – after AD 122), was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is ''De vita Caesarum'', common ...
, we learn that he was originally a
slave
Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...
who obtained his freedom and taught grammar at
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, ...
.
Suetonius preserves several anecdotes of his profligate and arrogant character.
[ He was said to be so steeped in luxury that he bathed several times a day. Tiberius and Claudius both felt he was too dissolute to allow boys and young men to be entrusted to him. He referred to the great grammarian ]Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) 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 Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes call ...
as a "pig". However, he had a remarkable memory and wrote poetry in unusual meters, and he enjoyed a great reputation as a teacher;[ ]Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (; 35 – 100 AD) was a Roman educator and rhetorician born in Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quin ...
and Persius
Aulus Persius Flaccus (; 4 December 3424 November 62 AD) was a Roman poet and satirist of Etruscan origin. In his works, poems and satire, he shows a Stoic wisdom and a strong criticism for what he considered to be the stylistic abuses of his ...
are said to have been his pupils.[
]
Works
His lost ''Ars'', a system of grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
much used in his own time and largely drawn upon by later grammarians, contained rules for correct diction
Diction ( (nom. ), "a saying, expression, word"), in its original meaning, is a writer's or speaker's distinctive vocabulary choices and style of expression in a piece of writing such as a poem or story.Crannell (1997) ''Glossary'', p. 406 In its c ...
, illustrative quotations and discussed barbarisms and solecisms.[ An extant '' Ars grammatica'' (discovered by Jovianus Pontanus in the 15th century) and other unimportant treatises on similar subjects have been wrongly ascribed to him.][
Among Palaemon's ascribed works is a ''Song on Weights and Measures'' (')][ now dated to between the late 4th and early 6th centuries. In this poem, first edited in 1528, the term ''gramma'' is used for a weight equal to two ]oboli
The obol (, ''obolos'', also wikt:ὀβελός, ὀβελός (''obelós''), wikt:ὀβελός, ὀβελλός (''obellós''), wikt:ὀβελός, ὀδελός (''odelós''). "nail, metal spit"; ) was a form of ancient Greek currency ...
.[.] (Two oboli—a ''diobol''—corresponds to 1/24th of a Roman ounce
The (plural: , lit. "''a twelfth''") was a Roman unit of length, weight, and volume. It survived as the Byzantine liquid ounce (, ''oungía'') and the origin of the English inch, ounce, and fluid ounce.
The Roman inch was equal to of a Roma ...
or about 1.14 grams.) This eventually led to the adoption of the term ''gram
The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a Physical unit, unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one thousandth of a kilogram.
Originally defined in 1795 as "the absolute Mass versus weight, weight of a volume ...
'' as a unit of weight (''poids'', later of mass) by the French National Convention
The National Convention () was the constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France for one day and the French First Republic for its first three years during the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the ...
in 1795.
References
Citation
Bibliography
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External links
Bibliography on Palaemon at ''Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum''
{{Authority control
Imperial Roman slaves and freedmen
Grammarians of Latin
Ancient linguists
1st-century Romans