Vibius Sequester (active in the 4th or 5th century AD) is the Latin author of lists of geographical names.
Work
''De fluminibus, fontibus, lacubus, nemoribus, gentibus, quorum apud poëtas mentio fit'' is made up of seven alphabetical lists of
geographical names mentioned by poets, especially
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
,
Ovid
Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the ...
and
Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (3 November 39 AD – 30 April 65 AD), better known in English as Lucan (), was a Roman poet, born in Corduba (modern-day Córdoba), in Hispania Baetica. He is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial ...
.
Several of the names do not appear in our copies of the poets; unless this is the result of carelessness or ignorance by the compiler, he must have had access to sources no longer extant.
The lists are:
# ''Flumina'' (rivers/waterways)
# ''Fontes'' (springs)
# ''Lacus'' (lakes)
# ''Nemora'' (forests)
# ''Paludes'' (marshes)
# ''Montes'' (mountains)
# ''Gentes'' (peoples)
The work was mainly copied by Italian humanists in the second half of the 9th century.
The work is best known for preserving a
dactylic pentameter line quoted from
Cornelius Gallus, ''uno tellures dividit amne duas'' ("
Scythian Hypanis">Southern_Bug.html" ;"title="he Southern Bug">Scythian Hypaniswith its one stream divides two lands"),
[Vibius Sequester, ''De fluminibus fontibus lacubus nemoribus paludibus montibus gentibus per litteras'', in Alexander Riese, ed. (1878), ''Geographi Latini Minores'']
p. 148
"Hypanis Scythiae qui, ut ait Gallus 'uno tellures dividit amne duas': Asiam enim ab Europa separat." ("The Scythian Hypanis which, as Gallus says, 'with its one stream divides two lands': that is, it separates Asia from Europe.") which was the only known fragment of Gallus's poetry before the discovery in 1978 of several additional lines by him on an Egyptian papyrus.
Editions
* Older editions include those published in Toulouse (1615); Rotterdam (1711); Paris (1843), and, by Conrad Bursian, Zürich (1867). The text is also in Alexander Riese's ''Geographi Latini minores'' (1878). See also Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel, Teuffel, ''History of Roman Literature'' (Eng. trans., 1900), 445, 1.
* Newer editions include the Teubner edited by R. Gelsomino (1967) and the edition of P.G. Parroni (Milan, 1965).
* Online:
* Online: p. 145-159 of Alexander Riese, ed. (1878), ''Geographi Latini Minores'',
Heilbronn
Heilbronn () is a city in northern Baden-Württemberg, Germany, surrounded by Heilbronn District. With over 126,000 residents, it is the sixth-largest city in the state.
From the late Middle Ages, it developed into an important trading centre. A ...
, available a
Google Bookso
the Internet Archive
References
* Pier Angelo Perotti, "Note a Vibio Sequestre," ''Giornale italiano di filologia'' 56 (2004) 87–99.
4th-century Romans
5th-century Romans
4th-century Latin writers
5th-century Latin writers
Vibii
4th-century geographers
5th-century geographers
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