[Owl]Latin Authors


3rd century B.C.

Romans started contact with the Greek civilization in the 3rd century B.C. and imitated Greek literary forms, such as comedies of Plautus (ca. 254-184 B.C.) and Terrence (185-159 B.C.)


Plautus


Golden Age (80 B.C. - 14 A.D.)

This was a period of civil wars and dictators, of military might against constitutional right, of selfish interest, of brilliant pomp and power, of moral and religious laxity.


Tituts Lucretius Carus (ca. 96 -55 B.C.): De Rerum Natura - a powerful didactic poem on happiness achieved through the Epicurean philosophy.

Not much is know about the life of this philosopher poet. His only work, De rerum natura ("About the essence of things"), was published posthumously by Cicero. He was not a popular writer; Quintilianus complained that he was difficult to understand, and St. Jerome claimed he wrote his work "between his insanities." Today however, dating back to the Renaissance, he held in high regard.



Caius Valerius Catullus (ca 84-54 B.C.): lyric poet.

The first great Roman poet, born in Verona. As a youth, Catullus came to Rome where he met and fell head-over-heels in love with a woman named Clodia (in his poems called Lesbia). Many of his poems depicts their stormy relationship and its vicissitudes. He also wrote short poems and elegies, but the Lesbia poems are perhaps his most famous.



Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.): the greatest Roman orator

Roman orator, writer and politician, consul in 63 BC. During his consulate, Cicero exposed an attempted coup d'etat led by Catalina and had the conspirators (except Catalina himself) executed. Charged with having carried out the execution without a legal sentence, he was exiled in 58 BC. He was recalled only a year later, but turned his back on politics and applied himself to literary work instead. After Caesar's murder, Cicero returned to politics and, hoping to restore the Republic, held a series of speeches in the Senate that fiercely attacked Marc Anthony. This proved to be fatal: during the proscriptions of the Second Triumvirate, Marc Anthony had Cicero murdered.
A lot of Cicero's extensive writing has been preserved, such as speeches, philosophic documents and personal letters, and his writing is regarded as having been normative for the Latin language.




Gaiius Julius Caesar (102-44 B.C.): orator, politician, dictator, author. De Bello Gallico

Roman general and statesman. A brilliant general, Caesar conquered all of Gaul and was made governor of Gallia Cisalpina and Gallia Transalpina, and started a civil war against the Senate and his former colleague Pompeius when they wanted him to relinquish command and give up his governorship. After defeating Pompey and gaining control over Rome, Caesar was elected dictator (a title not to be confused with our present-day use of the term; a Roman dictator ruled with absolute power for a brief period of time during a severe crisis), first yearly - which was almost unheard of - and later for ten years. His obvious striving for autocracy provoked and scared the old Senate nobility, and his being elected dictator for life in 44 BC was the final straw: about sixty senators conspired and stabbed him to death on March 15, Idibus Martiis.
Caesar's two great works are Commentarii de bello Gallico ("Commentaries on the Gallic War") and Commentarii de bello civili ("Commentaries on the Civil War"), both skillfully written propaganda for Caesar himself and his cause. Just as Cicero's, Caesar's prose is regarded as having been normative for the Latin language. ( Which probably causes both of them to turn in their graves, since they didn't exactly love each other - Cicero didn't exactly grieve when Caesar was murdered.)

(Titbits of information for the interested: Caesar probably didn't say "et tu, Brute" (and he almost certainly didn't say "ista vis est", "but this is violence"), but something like "Miarotate Kaska, ti poieis?", "Casca, you bloody scoundrel, what are you doing?", as Plutarch suggests. Only one of the more than 60 stabs he received was fatal: the second one. Of course, there is no way of knowing who dealt it.)


Cornelius Nepos (99-24 B.C.): writer of biographies.


Publilius Syrus (ca. 45 B.C.): a slave who became famous for his mimes.


Publius Vergilius Maro (70-19 B.C.): poet laureate. Aeneid - a national epic with ample universal and human appeal.

Roman poet, born near Mantua. Despite his simple heritage - he was the son of a farmer - Vergil was given the opportunity to study, among other things, rhetoric, history and philosophy, and his poems soon got the attention of Maecenas and Augustus. His first great work was Bucolica (also called Eclogae), a collection of pastorals, the second the didactic poem Georgica. But his magnum opus was the Roman national epic Aeneid, written under the last ten or twelve years of his life and never finished, that in twelve songs tells about how the Trojan hero Aeneas came to Latium and on the gods' command founded the Roman empire and its imperial dynasty. Vergil asked his friend Varius to burn the work after the poet's death, but Augustus ordered it published, thus preserving it to posterity.


Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65-8 B.C.): poet laureate.


Titus Livius (59 B.C. - 17 A.D.):

Roman historian, born in Padova in northern Italy. Livy began writing his Roman history Ab urbe condita in 26 BC and hadn't yet finished it when he died in 17 AD. Books 1 - 10 and 21 - 45 are all that are left of his great work of 142 books - of the rest, only fragments have been preserved.





Piblius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C. - 17 A.D.): metamorphoses.

Roman poet. In 9 AD, Ovid was exiled by Augustus to Tomi (where he died) for "carmen et error" (a poem and an error). The poem was probably Ars amandi ("The Art of Love"), but what the error was, we can only guess. Much of Ovid's work has been lost, but among the preserved is Ars amandi, Remedi amoris, Epistulae ex Ponto and his most famous work, Metamorphoses.


Silver Age (14 - 138 A.D.)

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Iunior (4 B.C. - 65 A.D.): Stoic philosopher

Roman politician, philosopher and writer. Born in Cordoba, Seneca was sent to Rome as a youth, where he studied philosophy and law. He became an important politician, but fell in disfavour and was exiled. He was recalled by empress Agrippina after a few years and made the teacher of the future emperor Nero. In 65 BC, he was accused of being a part of a conspiracy to take Nero's life, and was forced to commit suicide.
Seneca is known for his moral-philosophical writing in the form of dialogues, consolation writings and letters, and in his work you sometimes find striking parallels to Christian thinking. Many later writers, e.g. Montaigne, have been inspired by Seneca, and his nine tragedies have influenced European dramatists such as Shakespeare and Racine.


Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (ca 35-95 A.D.): Institutio Oratoria

Roman teacher of oratory born in Spain, active in Rome; Europe's first professor of literature. He wrote to educate and entertain his children, and his Institutio oratoria is meant to give the reader not only rhetorical abilities, but morality as well.


Marcus Valerius Martialis (45-104 A.D.):

Roman writer, born in Spain. Martialis came to Rome at the age of 22, during Nero's reign, and lived on the income from his books and his patrons' (among them the emperors Titus and Domitianus) generosity. His sly, often sarcastic epigrams have become a standard of the genre.


Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (ca. 62-113 A.D.): Epistolae


Marcus Claudius Tacitus (55-120 A.D.): a satirical, pro-senatorial historian

Roman historian, queastor during Vespasianus' reign, aedil under Titus', praetor under Domitianus' and governor of Asia Minor in 112 - 116.

Tacitus was a respected orator but his speeches, and a book of poems, have been lost. Among the works maintained are the four first books of Historiae, the history of the times of the emperors from the year 69, and books 1-4, 11-15 and parts of books 5,6 and 16 of his Annales, the Roman history from the death of August in 14 AD to the year 68.


Decimus Junius Juvenalis (55- 127 A.D.): a relentless satirist of the evils of his times

Roman satirist, born in Aquinum in south-east Latium, who probably worked as a lawyer. During Emperor Domitianus' reign, Juvenalis was exiled, probably to Egypt, for having made fun of one of the emperor's proteges. His satires were published when Trajanus' was emperor, but criticise life in Rome during Domitianus' and Nero's reign. Their prime targets are the rich, women and foreigners, especially the Greek.


Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (circa 70 - 140 AD)

Roman historian, probably born in Hippo Regius in Northern Africa. Suetonius, who began his career as a lawyer, was imperial secretary during Hadrian's reign, but was fired from that post in 121. Then, he started to write biographies of the emperors from Caesar to Domitian (Vitae Caesarum), and he also wrote biographies of poets, orators, historians and grammarians (De viris illustribus). Of the latter, only fragments have been preserved.


Patristic Period ( 2nd to 5th century)


Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian (ca 155 - after 220): Apologeticus

Writer, born in Carthage. Tertullianus studied law, rhetoric and philosophy. Impressed by the courage of the martyrs, he became a Christian, but joined the Montanists upon his return to Africa and broke with the Church. Later, he also abandoned the Montanism and formed a new sect. He wrote about 50 works, of which 32 have been preserved. The best known is Apologeticum, a fierce defence of Christianity.


Cyprian (d 258):


Lactantius (240 -320): Divinae Institutiones



Hieronymus [Jerome] (ca 374 - 419): Biblia Vulgata.

Christian writer, born in Dalmatia. Hieronymus wrote letters, biographies and commentaries on the books of the Bible. More important, his translation of the Bible to Latin became the Versio Vulgata, and this translation is used by the Catholic church even today.


Ambrose (339 - 397): De Mysteriis



Augustine (354 - 430): De civitate Dei

Latin was spoken from the 1st to the 5th century and was the official language of the Roman Empire.

Greek was the second language other than the official Latin in eastern Mediterranean.

Native languages in Spain and Gaul were converted by Latin into Romance languages.

In the fifth century, Latin did not survive the collapse of central Roman authority in the peripheral parts of the Empire.



6th -14th century (Middle Ages)

Latin continued as the living language of the Church and of the intellectual world. It was an international language for Europe.

It remained the medium of Western Christianity as a written language 文言文 of liturgy and administration. This Christian Latin was transmitted by education in an unchanging form and students had to learn it painfully.

Within communities of the educated, it became a spoken language as the medium of teaching 教學語言. In Late fourth century, St. Jerome's translation of the Bible, called Biblia Vulgata 普通聖經, became a standard in grammar for later Latin usage.


Emperor Charlemagne (800) conserved many works of classical Latin authors in his cathedral and monastic schools. In the twelfth century, the first universities emphasised on secular learning and professional training in medicine and law, and started to search out, copy and edit new Latin texts of the classical period.

15th century to the present

Renaissance scholars scorned medieval Latin and turned to Cicero in particular as the canon of perfection of Latinity. But it was an artificial movement which made Latin somewhat imitative and static compared with the spontaneous, living language which it had been during the Middle Ages.