Zenobius () was a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
sophist
A sophist () was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught ''arete'', "virtue" or "excellen ...
, who taught rhetoric 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, ...
during the reign of Emperor
Hadrian
Hadrian ( ; ; 24 January 76 – 10 July 138) was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. Hadrian was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in Spain, an Italic peoples, Italic settlement in Hispania Baetica; his branch of the Aelia gens, Aelia '' ...
(AD 117–138).
Biography
He was the author of a collection of proverbs in three books, still extant in an abridged form, compiled, according to the ''
Suda
The ''Suda'' or ''Souda'' (; ; ) is a large 10th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine encyclopedia of the History of the Mediterranean region, ancient Mediterranean world, formerly attributed to an author called Soudas () or Souidas (). It is an ...
'',
[Suda ζ 73] from
Didymus of Alexandria and "The Tarrhaean" (
Lucillus of
Tarrha, a polis in
Crete
Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...
). In the work, the proverbs are
alphabetised and grouped by hundreds. This collection was first printed by
Filippo Giunti in Florence, 1497.
Zenobius is also said to have been the author of a Greek translation of the Latin prose author
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (, ; –35 BC), was a historian and politician of the Roman Republic from a plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became a partisan of Julius ...
, which has been lost, and of a birthday poem on the emperor Hadrian.
Notes
References
*
* Endnotes:
**
T. Gaisford (1836) and
E. L. Leutsch–
F. W. Schneiderwin (1839)
**B. E. Miller, ''Mélanges de littérature grecque '' (1868)
**W. Christ, ''Griechische Litteraturgeschichte'' (1898)
Further reading
* Furley, William D., "Zenobius (2). Grammaticus Greek scholar in Rome, at the time of Hadrian", in ''
Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 15'', Tuc-Zyt, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider,
Brill, 2009.
Online version at Brill
External links
* ''Corpus paroemiographorum graecorum'', E. L. Leutsch, F. G. Schneidewin (ed.), vol. 1, Gottingae, apud Vandenohoeck et Ruprecht, 1839
pp. 1–176
Discussion about Zenobius at Roger-Pearse.com
Roman-era Sophists
Roman-era philosophers in Rome
Ancient Greek educators
2nd-century Greek philosophers
Year of birth unknown
Year of death unknown
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