Classical Latin

Classical

"Good Latin" in philology is known as "classical" Latin literature. The term refers to the canonical relevance of literary works written in Latin in the late Roman Republic, and early to middle Roman Empire. "[T]hat is to say, that of belonging to an exclusive group of authors (or works) that were considered to be emblematic of a certain genre."^[1] The term classicus (masculine plural classici) was devised by the Romans to translate Greek ἐγκριθέντες (encrithentes), and "select" which refers to authors who wrote in a form of Greek that was considered model. Before then, the term classis, in addition to being a naval fleet, was a social class in one of the diachronic divisions of Roman society in accordance with property ownership under the Roman constitution.^[2] The word is a transliteration of Greek κλῆσις (clēsis, or "calling") used to rank army draftees by property from first to fifth class.

Classicus refers to those in the primae classis ("first class"), such as the authors of polished works of Latinitas, or sermo urbanus. It contains nuances of the certified and the authentic, or testis classicus ("reliable witness"). It was under this construct that Marcus Cornelius Fronto (an African-Roman lawyer and language teacher) used scriptores classici ("first-class" or "reliable authors") in the second century AD. Their works were viewed as models of good Latin.^[3] This is the first known reference (possibly innovated during this time) to Classical Latin applied by authors, evidenced in the authentic language of their works.^[4]

Canonical

David Ruhnken

Imitating Greek grammarians, Romans such as Quintilian drew up lists termed indices or ordines modeled after the ones created by the Greeks, which were called pinakes. The Greek lists were considered classical, or recepti scriptores ("select writers"). Aulus Gellius includes authors like Plautus, who are considered writers of Old Latin and not strictly in the period of classical Latin. The classical Romans distinguished Old Latin as prisca Latinitas and not sermo vulgaris. Each author's work in the Roman lists was considered equivalent to one in the Greek. In example, Ennius was the Latin Homer, Aeneid was the equivalent of Iliad, etc. The lists of classical authors were as far as the Roman grammarians went in developing a philology. The topic remained at that point while interest in the classici scriptores declined in the medieval period as the best form of the language yielded to medieval Latin, inferior to classical standards.

The Renaissance saw a revival in Roman culture, and with it, the return of Classic ("the best") Latin. Thomas Sébillet's Art Poétique (1548), "les bons et classiques poètes françois", refers to Jean de Meun and Alain Chartier, who the first modern application of the words. According to Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the term classical (from classicus) entered modern English in 1599, some 50 years after its re-introduction to the continent. In Governor William Bradford's Dialogue (1648), he referred to synods of a separatist church as "classical meetings", defined by meetings between "young men" from New England and "ancient men" from Holland and England.^[5] In 1715, Laurence Echard's Classical Geographical Dictionary was published.^[6] In 1736, Robert Ainsworth's Thesaurus Linguae Latinae Compendarius turned English words and expressions into "proper and classical Latin."^[7] In 1768, David Ruhnken's Critical History of the Greek Orators recast the molded view of the classical by applying the word "canon" to the pinakes of orators after the Biblical canon, or list of authentic books of the Bible. In doing so, Ruhnken had secular catechism in mind.^[8]

Ages of Latin

Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel

In 1870, Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel's Geschichte der Römischen Literatur (A History of Roman Literature) defined the philological notion of classical Latin through a typology similar to the Ages of Man, setting out the Golden and Silver Ages of classical Latin. Wilhem Wagner, who published Teuffel's work in German, also produced an English translation which he published in 1873. Teuffel's classification, still in use today (with modifications), groups classical Latin authors into periods defined by political events rather than by style.

Teuffel went on to publish other editions, but the English translation of A History of Roman Literature gained immediate success.

In 1877, Charles Thomas Cruttwell produced a similar work in English. In his preface, Cruttwell notes "Teuffel's admirable history, without which many chapters in the present work could not have attained completeness." He also credits Wagner.

Cruttwell adopts the time periods found in Teuffel's work, but he presents a detailed analysis of style, whereas Teuffel was more concerned with history. Like Teuffel, Cruttwell encountered issues while attempting to condense the voluminous details of time periods in an effort to capture the meaning of phases found in their various writing styles. Like Teuffel, he has trouble finding a name for the first of the three periods (the current Old Latin phase), calling it "from Livius to Sulla." He says the language "is marked by immaturity of art and language, by a vigorous but ill-disciplined imitation of Greek poetical models, and in prose by a dry sententiousness of style, gradually giving way to a clear and fluent strength..." These abstracts have little meaning to those not well-versed in Latin literature. In fact, Cruttwell admits "The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether the advance would be perceptible by us."

In time, some of Cruttwell's ideas become established in Latin philology. While praising the application of rules to classical Latin (most intensely in the Golden Age, he says "In gaining accuracy, however, classical Latin suffered a grievous loss. It became cultivated as distinct from a natural language... Spontaneity, therefore, became impossible and soon invention also ceased... In a certain sense, therefore, Latin was studied as a dead language, while it was still a living."^[9]

Also problematic in Teuffel's scheme is its appropriateness to the concept of classical Latin. Cruttwell addresses the issue by altering the concept of the classical. The "best" Latin is defined as "golden" Latin, the second of the three periods. The other two periods (considered "classical") are left hanging. By assigning the term "pre-classical" to Old Latin and implicating it to post-classical (or post-Augustan) and silver Latin, Cruttwell realized that his construct was not accordance with ancient usage and assertions: "[T]he epithet classical is by many restricted to the authors who wrote in it [golden Latin]. It is best, however, not to narrow unnecessarily the sphere of classicity; to exclude Terence on the one hand or Tacitus and Pliny on the other, would savour of artificial restriction rather than that of a natural classification." The contradiction remains—Terence is, and is not a classical author, depending on the context.^[10]

Discover more about Philological constructs related topics

Latin literature

Latin literature

Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature would flourish for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into the following periods: Early Latin literature, The Golden Age, The Imperial Period and Late Antiquity.

Marcus Cornelius Fronto

Marcus Cornelius Fronto

Marcus Cornelius Fronto, best known as Fronto, was a Roman grammarian, rhetorician, and advocate. Of Berber origin, he was born at Cirta in Numidia. He was suffect consul for the nundinium of July-August 142 with Gaius Laberius Priscus as his colleague. Emperor Antoninus Pius appointed him tutor to his adopted sons and future emperors, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.

Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surface area. With 1.4 billion people as of 2021, it accounts for about 18% of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Africa an important economic market in the broader global context.

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome

In modern historiography, Ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the Italian city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom, Roman Republic and Roman Empire until the fall of the western empire.

Aulus Gellius

Aulus Gellius

Aulus Gellius was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his Attic Nights, a commonplace book, or compilation of notes on grammar, philosophy, history, antiquarianism, and other subjects, preserving fragments of the works of many authors who might otherwise be unknown today.

Old Latin

Old Latin

Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin, was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. It descends from a common Proto-Italic language; Latino-Faliscan is likely a separate branch from Osco-Umbrian with possible further relation to other Italic languages and to Celtic; e.g. the Italo-Celtic hypothesis.

Ennius

Ennius

Quintus Ennius was a writer and poet who lived during the Roman Republic. He is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was born in the small town of Rudiae, located near modern Lecce, Apulia,, a town founded by the Messapians, and could speak Greek as well as Latin and Oscan. Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence in Latin literature was significant, particularly in his use of Greek literary models.

Homer

Homer

Homer was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.

Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who fled the fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas' wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.

Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature.

Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin

Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned as the main medium of scholarly exchange, as the liturgical language of the Church, and as the working language of science, literature, law, and administration.

Jean de Meun

Jean de Meun

Jean de Meun was a French author best known for his continuation of the Roman de la Rose.

At Maecenas' Reception, oil, Stefan Bakałowicz, 1890. An artist's view of the classical. Maecenas knew and entertained everyone literary in the Golden Age, especially Augustus.

Teuffel's definition of the "First Period" of Latin was based on inscriptions, fragments, and the literary works of the earliest known authors. Though he does use the term "Old Roman" at one point, most of these findings remain unnamed. Teuffel presents the Second Period in his major work, das goldene Zeitalter der römischen Literatur (Golden Age of Roman Literature), dated 671–767 AUC (83 BC – 14 AD), according to his own recollection. The timeframe is marked by the dictatorship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix and the death of the emperor Augustus.^[11][12] Wagner's translation of Teuffel's writing is as follows:

The golden age of the Roman literature is that period in which the climax was reached in the perfection of form, and in most respects also in the methodical treatment of the subject-matters. It may be subdivided between the generations, in the first of which (the Ciceronian Age) prose culminated, while poetry was principally developed in the Augustan Age.

The Ciceronian Age was dated 671–711 AUC (83–43 BC), ending just after the death of Marcus Tullius Cicero. The Augustan 711–67 AUC (43 BC – 14 AD) ends with the death of Augustus. The Ciceronian Age is further divided by the consulship of Cicero in 691 AUC (63 BC) into a first and second half. Authors are assigned to these periods by years of principal achievements.

The Golden Age had already made an appearance in German philology, but in a less systematic way. In a translation of Bielfeld's Elements of universal erudition (1770):

The Second Age of Latin began about the time of Caesar [his ages are different from Teuffel's], and ended with Tiberius. This is what is called the Augustan Age, which was perhaps of all others the most brilliant, a period at which it should seem as if the greatest men, and the immortal authors, had met together upon the earth, in order to write the Latin language in its utmost purity and perfection...^[13] and of Tacitus, his conceits and sententious style is not that of the golden age...^[14]

Evidently, Teuffel received ideas about golden and silver Latin from an existing tradition and embedded them in a new system, transforming them as he thought best.

In Cruttwell's introduction, the Golden Age is dated 80 BC – 14 AD (from Cicero to Ovid), which corresponds to Teuffel's findings. Of the "Second Period," Cruttwell paraphrases Teuffel by saying it "represents the highest excellence in prose and poetry." The Ciceronian Age (known today as the "Republican Period") is dated 80–42 BC, marked by the Battle of Philippi. Cruttwell omits the first half of Teuffel's Ciceronian, and starts the Golden Age at Cicero's consulship in 63 BC—an error perpetuated in Cruttwell's second edition. He likely meant 80 BC, as he includes Varro in Golden Latin. Teuffel's Augustan Age is Cruttwell's Augustan Epoch (42 BC – 14 AD).

Republican

Marcus Tullius Cicero, after whom Teuffel named his Ciceronian period of the Golden Age

Julius Caesar

The literary histories list includes all authors from Canonical to the Ciceronian Age—even those whose works are fragmented or missing altogether. With the exception of a few major writers, such as Cicero, Caesar, Virgil and Catullus, ancient accounts of Republican literature praise jurists and orators whose writings, and analyses of various styles of language cannot be verified because there are no surviving records. The reputations of Aquilius Gallus, Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, and many others who gained notoriety without readable works, are presumed by their association within the Golden Age. A list of canonical authors of the period whose works survived in whole or in part is shown here:

• Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC), highly influential grammarian
• Titus Pomponius Atticus (112/109 – 35/32), publisher and correspondent of Cicero
• Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), orator, philosopher, essayist, whose works define golden Latin prose and are used in Latin curricula beyond the elementary level
• Servius Sulpicius Rufus (106–43 BC), jurist, poet
• Decimus Laberius (105–43 BC), writer of mimes
• Marcus Furius Bibaculus (1st century BC), writer of ludicra
• Gaius Julius Caesar (100–44 BC), general, statesman, historian
• Gaius Oppius (1st century BC), secretary to Julius Caesar, probable author under Caesar's name
• Gaius Matius (1st century BC), public figure, correspondent with Cicero
• Cornelius Nepos (100–24 BC), biographer
• Publilius Syrus (1st century BC), writer of mimes and maxims
• Quintus Cornificius (1st century BC), public figure and writer on rhetoric
• Titus Lucretius Carus (Lucretius; 94–50 BC), poet, philosopher
• Publius Nigidius Figulus (98–45 BC), public officer, grammarian
• Aulus Hirtius (90–43 BC), public officer, military historian
• Gaius Helvius Cinna (1st century BC), poet
• Marcus Caelius Rufus (87–48 BC), orator, correspondent with Cicero
• Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86–34 BC), historian
• Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (Cato the Younger; 95–46 BC), orator
• Publius Valerius Cato (1st century BC), poet, grammarian
• Gaius Valerius Catullus (Catullus; 84–54 BC), poet
• Gaius Licinius Macer Calvus (82–47 BC), orator, poet

Augustan

The Golden Age is divided by the assassination of Julius Caesar. In the wars that followed, a generation of Republican literary figures was lost. Cicero and his contemporaries were replaced by a new generation who spent their formative years under the old constructs, and forced to make their mark under the watchful eye of a new emperor. The demand for great orators had ceased,^[15] shifting to an emphasis on poetry. Other than the historian Livy, the most remarkable writers of the period were the poets Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Although Augustus evidenced some toleration to republican sympathizers, he exiled Ovid, and imperial tolerance ended with the continuance of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Augustan writers include:

• Publius Vergilius Maro (Virgil, spelled also as Vergil; 70 – 19 BC),
• Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 – 8 BC), known for lyric poetry and satires
• Sextus Aurelius Propertius (50 – 15 BC), poet
• Albius Tibullus (54–19 BC), elegiac poet
• Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC – AD 18), poet
• Titus Livius (64 BC – AD 12), historian
• Grattius Faliscus (a contemporary of Ovid), poet
• Marcus Manilius (1st century BC and AD), astrologer, poet
• Gaius Julius Hyginus (64 BC – AD 17), librarian, poet, mythographer
• Marcus Verrius Flaccus (55 BC – AD 20), grammarian, philologist, calendarist
• Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (80-70 BC — after 15 BC), engineer, architect
• Marcus Antistius Labeo (d. AD 10 or 11), jurist, philologist
• Lucius Cestius Pius (1st century BC & AD), Latin educator
• Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus (1st century BC), historian, naturalist
• Marcus Porcius Latro (late 1st century BC), rhetorician
• Gaius Valgius Rufus (consul 12 BC), poet

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Ab urbe condita

Ab urbe condita

Ab urbe condita, or anno urbis conditae, abbreviated as AUC or AVC, expresses a date in years since 753 BC, the traditional founding of Rome. It is an expression used in antiquity and by classical historians to refer to a given year in Ancient Rome. In reference to the traditional year of the foundation of Rome, the year 1 BC would be written AUC 753, whereas AD 1 would be AUC 754. The foundation of the Roman Empire in 27 BC would be AUC 727. The current year AD 2023 would be AUC 2776.

Augustus

Augustus

Caesar Augustus, also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Principate, which is the first phase of the Roman Empire, and is considered one of the greatest leaders in human history. The reign of Augustus initiated an imperial cult as well as an era associated with imperial peace, the Pax Romana or Pax Augusta. The Roman world was largely free from large-scale conflict for more than two centuries despite continuous wars of imperial expansion on the empire's frontiers and the year-long civil war known as the "Year of the Four Emperors" over the imperial succession.

Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the establishment of the Roman Empire. His extensive writings include treatises on rhetoric, philosophy and politics. He is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and served as consul in 63 BC.

Battle of Philippi

Battle of Philippi

The Battle of Philippi was the final battle in the Liberators' civil war between the forces of Mark Antony and Octavian and the leaders of Julius Caesar's assassination, Brutus and Cassius in 42 BC, at Philippi in Macedonia. The Second Triumvirate declared the civil war ostensibly to avenge Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC, but the underlying cause was a long-brewing conflict between the so-called Optimates and the so-called Populares.

Lucullus

Lucullus

Lucius Licinius Lucullus was a Roman general and statesman, closely connected with Lucius Cornelius Sulla. In culmination of over 20 years of almost continuous military and government service, he conquered the eastern kingdoms in the course of the Third Mithridatic War, exhibiting extraordinary generalship in diverse situations, most famously during the Siege of Cyzicus in 73–72 BC, and at the Battle of Tigranocerta in Armenian Arzanene in 69 BC. His command style received unusually favourable attention from ancient military experts, and his campaigns appear to have been studied as examples of skillful generalship.

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro

Marcus Terentius Varro 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". He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.

Decimus Laberius

Decimus Laberius

Decimus Laberius was a Roman eques and writer of mimes (farces).

Marcus Furius Bibaculus

Marcus Furius Bibaculus

Marcus Furius Bibaculus, was a Roman poet, who flourished during the last century of the Republic.

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar

Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and subsequently became dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Gaius Oppius

Gaius Oppius

Gaius Oppius was an intimate friend of Julius Caesar. He managed the dictator's private affairs during his absence from Rome, and, together with Lucius Cornelius Balbus, exercised considerable influence in the city.

Gaius Matius

Gaius Matius

Gaius Matius was a citizen of ancient Rome notable as a friend of Julius Caesar and of Cicero, who described him in a letter to Trebatius (53BC) as "homo suavissimus doctissimusque".

Cornelius Nepos

Cornelius Nepos

Cornelius Nepos was a Roman biographer. He was born at Hostilia, a village in Cisalpine Gaul not far from Verona.

The frowning second emperor, Tiberius, limited free speech, precipitating the rise of Silver Latin, with its emphasis on mannerism rather than on solid content, according to Teuffel's model

In his second volume, Imperial Period, Teuffel initiated a slight alteration in approach, making it clear that his terms applied to Latin and not just to the period. He also changed his dating scheme from AUC to modern BC/AD. Though he introduces das silberne Zeitalter der römischen Literatur, (The Silver Age of Roman Literature)^[16] from the death of Augustus to the death of Trajan (14–117 AD), he also mentions parts of a work by Seneca the Elder, a wenig Einfluss der silbernen Latinität (a slight influence of silver Latin). It's clear that his mindset had shifted from Golden and Silver Ages to Golden and Silver Latin, also to include Latinitas, which at this point must be interpreted as Classical Latin. He may have been influenced in that regard by one of his sources E. Opitz, who in 1852 had published specimen lexilogiae argenteae latinitatis, which includes Silver Latinity.^[17] Though Teuffel's First Period was equivalent to Old Latin and his Second Period was equal to the Golden Age, his Third Period die römische Kaiserheit encompasses both the Silver Age and the centuries now termed Late Latin, in which the forms seemed to break loose from their foundation and float freely. That is, men of literature were confounded about the meaning of "good Latin." The last iteration of Classical Latin is known as Silver Latin. The Silver Age is the first of the Imperial Period, and is divided into die Zeit der julischen Dynastie (14–68); die Zeit der flavischen Dynastie (69–96), and die Zeit des Nerva und Trajan (96–117). Subsequently, Teuffel goes over to a century scheme: 2nd, 3rd, etc., through 6th. His later editions (which came about towards the end of the 19th century) divide the Imperial Age into parts: 1st century (Silver Age), 2nd century ( the Hadrian and the Antonines), and the 3rd through 6th centuries. Of the Silver Age proper, Teuffel points out that anything like freedom of speech had vanished with Tiberius:^[18]

...the continual apprehension in which men lived caused a restless versatility... Simple or natural composition was considered insipid; the aim of language was to be brilliant... Hence it was dressed up with abundant tinsel of epigrams, rhetorical figures and poetical terms... Mannerism supplanted style, and bombastic pathos took the place of quiet power.

The content of new literary works was continually proscribed by the emperor, who exiled or executed existing authors and played the role of literary man, himself (typically badly). Artists therefore went into a repertory of new and dazzling mannerisms, which Teuffel calls "utter unreality." Cruttwell picks up this theme:^[19]

The foremost of these [characteristics] is unreality, arising from the extinction of freedom... Hence arose a declamatory tone, which strove by frigid and almost hysterical exaggeration to make up for the healthy stimulus afforded by daily contact with affairs. The vein of artificial rhetoric, antithesis and epigram... owes its origin to this forced contentment with an uncongenial sphere. With the decay of freedom, taste sank...

Marcus Aurelius, emperor over the last generation of classicists and himself a classicist.

In Cruttwell's view (which had not been expressed by Teuffel), Silver Latin was a "rank, weed-grown garden," a "decline."^[20] Cruttwell had already decried what he saw as a loss of spontaneity in Golden Latin. Teuffel regarded the Silver Age as a loss of natural language, and therefore of spontaneity, implying that it was last seen in the Golden Age. Instead, Tiberius brought about a "sudden collapse of letters." The idea of a decline had been dominant in English society since Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Once again, Cruttwell evidences some unease with his stock pronouncements: "The Natural History of Pliny shows how much remained to be done in fields of great interest." The idea of Pliny as a model is not consistent with any sort of decline. Moreover, Pliny did his best work under emperors who were as tolerant as Augustus had been. To include some of the best writings of the Silver Age, Cruttwell extended the period through the death of Marcus Aurelius (180 AD). The philosophic prose of a good emperor was in no way compatible with either Teuffel's view of unnatural language, or Cruttwell's depiction of a decline. Having created these constructs, the two philologists found they could not entirely justify them. Apparently, in the worst implication of their views, there was no such thing as Classical Latin by the ancient definition, and some of the very best writing of any period in world history was deemed stilted, degenerate, unnatural language.

The Silver Age furnishes the only two extant Latin novels: Apuleius's The Golden Ass and Petronius's Satyricon.

Writers of the Silver Age include:

From the Ides of March to Trajan

Germanicus Caesar

Ancient bust of Seneca, part of a double herm (Antikensammlung Berlin)

• Aulus Cremutius Cordus (died AD 25), historian
• Marcus Velleius Paterculus (19 BC – 31 AD), military officer, historian
• Valerius Maximus (20 BC – 50 AD), rhetorician
• Masurius Sabinus (1st century AD), jurist
• Phaedrus (15 BC – AD 50), fabulist
• Germanicus Julius Caesar (15 BC – AD 19), royal family, imperial officer, translator
• Aulus Cornelius Celsus (25 BC – AD 50), physician, encyclopedist
• Quintus Curtius Rufus (1st century AD), historian
• Cornelius Bocchus (1st century AD), natural historian
• Pomponius Mela (d. AD 45), geographer
• Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC – AD 65), educator, imperial advisor, philosopher, man of letters
• Titus Calpurnius Siculus (1st century AD or possibly later), poet
• Marcus Valerius Probus (1st century AD), literary critic
• Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (10 BC – AD 54), emperor, man of letters, public officer
• Gaius Suetonius Paulinus (1st century AD), general, natural historian
• Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella (AD 4 – 70), military officer, agriculturalist
• Quintus Asconius Pedianus (9 BC – 76 AD), historian, Latinist
• Gaius Musonius Rufus (AD 20 – 101), stoic philosopher
• Quintus Marcius Barea Soranus (1st century AD), imperial officer and public man
• Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23 – 79), imperial officer and encyclopedist
• Gaius Valerius Flaccus (1st century AD), epic poet
• Tiberius Catius Silius Italicus (AD 28 – 103), epic poet
• Gaius Licinius Mucianus (d. AD 76), general, man of letters
• Lucilius Junior (1st century AD), poet
• Aulus Persius Flaccus (34–62 AD), poet and satirist
• Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35–100 AD), rhetorician
• Sextus Julius Frontinus (AD 40 – 103), engineer, writer
• Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (AD 39 – 65), poet, historian
• Publius Juventius Celsus Titus Aufidius Hoenius Severianus (1st and early 2nd centuries AD), imperial officer, jurist
• Aemilius Asper (1st and 2nd centuries AD), grammarian, literary critic
• Marcus Valerius Martialis (AD 40 – 104), poet, epigrammatist
• Publius Papinius Statius (AD 45 – 96), poet
• Decimus Junius Juvenalis (1st and 2nd centuries AD), poet, satirist
• Publius Annaeus Florus (1st and 2nd centuries AD), poet, rhetorician and probable author of the epitome of Livy
• Velius Longus (1st and 2nd centuries AD), grammarian, literary critic
• Flavius Caper (1st and 2nd centuries AD), grammarian
• Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 − 120), imperial officer, historian and in Teuffel's view "the last classic of Roman literature."
• Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (AD 62 – 114), historian, imperial officer and correspondent

Through the death of Marcus Aurelius, 180 AD

Sketch of Apuleius

Of the additional century granted by Cruttwell to Silver Latin, Teuffel says: "The second century was a happy period for the Roman State, the happiest indeed during the whole Empire... But in the world of letters the lassitude and enervation, which told of Rome's decline, became unmistakeable... its forte is in imitation."^[21] Teuffel, however, excepts the jurists; others find other "exceptions", recasting Teuffels's view.

• Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (70/75 – after 130 AD), biographer
• Marcus Junianus Justinus (2nd century AD), historian
• Lucius Octavius Cornelius Publius Salvius Julianus Aemilianus (AD 110–170), imperial officer, jurist
• Sextus Pomponius (2nd century AD), jurist
• Quintus Terentius Scaurus (2nd century AD), grammarian, literary critic
• Aulus Gellius (AD 125 – after 180), grammarian, polymath
• Lucius Apuleius Platonicus (123/125–180 AD), novelist
• Marcus Cornelius Fronto (AD 100–170), advocate, grammarian
• Gaius Sulpicius Apollinaris (2nd century AD), educator, literary commentator
• Granius Licinianus (2nd century AD), writer
• Lucius Ampelius (2nd century AD), educator
• Gaius (AD 130–180), jurist
• Lucius Volusius Maecianus (2nd century AD), educator, jurist
• Marcus Minucius Felix (d. AD 250), apologist of Christianity, "the first Christian work in Latin" (Teuffel)
• Sextus Julius Africanus (2nd century AD), Christian historian
• Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus (121–180 AD), stoic philosopher, Emperor in Latin, essayist in ancient Greek, role model of the last generation of classicists (Cruttwell)

Discover more about Authors of the Silver Age related topics

Mannerism

Mannerism

Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it. Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century.

Seneca the Elder

Seneca the Elder

Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder, also known as Seneca the Rhetorician, was a Roman writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Corduba, Hispania. He wrote a collection of reminiscences about the Roman schools of rhetoric, six books of which are extant in a more or less complete state and five others in epitome only. His principal work, a history of Roman affairs from the beginning of the Civil Wars until the last years of his life, is almost entirely lost to posterity. Seneca lived through the reigns of three significant emperors; Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. He was the father of Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, best known as a Proconsul of Achaia; his second son was the dramatist and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger (Lucius), who was tutor of Nero, and his third son, Marcus Annaeus Mela, became the father of the poet Lucan.

Old Latin

Old Latin

Old Latin, also known as Early Latin or Archaic Latin, was the Latin language in the period before 75 BC, i.e. before the age of Classical Latin. It descends from a common Proto-Italic language; Latino-Faliscan is likely a separate branch from Osco-Umbrian with possible further relation to other Italic languages and to Celtic; e.g. the Italo-Celtic hypothesis.

Late Latin

Late Latin

Late Latin is the scholarly name for the form of Literary Latin of late antiquity. English dictionary definitions of Late Latin date this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries CE, and continuing into the 7th century in the Iberian Peninsula. This somewhat ambiguously defined version of Latin was used between the eras of Classical Latin and Medieval Latin. Scholars do not agree exactly when Classical Latin should end or Medieval Latin should begin.

Hadrian

Hadrian

Hadrian was Roman emperor from 117 to 138. He was born in Italica, a Roman municipium founded by Italic settlers in Hispania Baetica. He came from a branch of the gens Aelia that originated in the Picenean town of Hadria, the Aeli Hadriani. His father was of senatorial rank and was a first cousin of Emperor Trajan. Hadrian married Trajan's grand-niece Vibia Sabina early in his career before Trajan became emperor and possibly at the behest of Trajan's wife Pompeia Plotina. Plotina and Trajan's close friend and adviser Lucius Licinius Sura were well disposed towards Hadrian. When Trajan died, his widow claimed that he had nominated Hadrian as emperor immediately before his death.

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace, calmness and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon was an English historian, writer, and member of parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788, is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organised religion.

The Golden Ass

The Golden Ass

The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which Augustine of Hippo referred to as The Golden Ass, is the only ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety.

Satyricon

Satyricon

The Satyricon, Satyricon liber, or Satyrica, is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as Titus Petronius. The Satyricon is an example of Menippean satire, which is different from the formal verse satire of Juvenal or Horace. The work contains a mixture of prose and verse ; serious and comic elements; and erotic and decadent passages. As with The Golden Ass by Apuleius, classical scholars often describe it as a Roman novel, without necessarily implying continuity with the modern literary form.

Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca

Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca

The Double Herm of Socrates and Seneca is an ancient Roman statue from the first half of the third century AD. The herm depicts the Greek philosopher Socrates on one side, and the Roman Stoic Seneca the Younger on the other. It currently belongs to the Antikensammlung Berlin, found in the Altes Museum.

Antikensammlung Berlin

Antikensammlung Berlin

The Antikensammlung Berlin is one of the most important collections of classical art in the world, now held in the Altes Museum and Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. It contains thousands of ancient archaeological artefacts from the ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Cypriot civilizations. Its main attraction is the Pergamon Altar and Greek and Roman architectural elements from Priene, Magnesia, Baalbek and Falerii. In addition, the collection includes a large number of ancient sculptures, vases, terracottas, bronzes, sarcophagi, engraved gems and metalwork.

Aulus Cremutius Cordus

Aulus Cremutius Cordus

Aulus Cremutius Cordus was a Roman historian. There are very few remaining fragments of his work, principally covering the civil war and the reign of Augustus. In AD 25 he was forced by Sejanus, who was praetorian prefect under Tiberius, to take his life after being accused violating the lex maiestas.

Style of language refers to repeatable features of speech that are somewhat less general than the fundamental characteristics of a language. The latter provides unity, allowing it to be referred to by a single name. Thus Old Latin, Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin, etc., are not considered different languages, but are all referred to by the term, Latin. This is an ancient practice continued by moderns rather than a philological innovation of recent times. That Latin had case endings is a fundamental feature of the language. Whether a given form of speech prefers to use prepositions such as ad, ex, de, for "to," "from" and "of" rather than simple case endings is a matter of style. Latin has a large number of styles. Each and every author has a style, which typically allows his prose or poetry to be identified by experienced Latinists. Problems in comparative literature have risen out of group styles finding similarity by period, in which case one may speak of Old Latin, Silver Latin, Late Latin as styles or a phase of styles.

The ancient authors themselves first defined style by recognizing different kinds of sermo, or "speech". By valuing Classical Latin as "first class", it was better to write with Latinitas selected by authors who were attuned to literary and upper-class languages of the city as a standardized style. All sermo that differed from it was a different style. Thus, in rhetoric, Cicero was able to define sublime, intermediate, and low styles within Classical Latin. St. Augustine recommended low style for sermons.^[22] Style was to be defined by deviation in speech from a standard. Teuffel termed this standard "Golden Latin".

John Edwin Sandys, who was an authority in Latin style for several decades, summarizes the differences between Golden and Silver Latin as follows:^[23]

Silver Latin is to be distinguished by:

• "an exaggerated conciseness and point"
• "occasional archaic words and phrases derived from poetry"
• "increase in the number of Greek words in ordinary use" (the Emperor Claudius in Suetonius refers to "both our languages," Latin and Greek^[24])
• "literary reminiscences"
• "The literary use of words from the common dialect" (dictare and dictitare as well as classical dicere, "to say")

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Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin

Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal registers of Latin spoken from the Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin evolved into numerous Romance languages. Its literary counterpart was a form of either Classical Latin or Late Latin, depending on the time period.

Latin

Latin

Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition.

Claudius

Claudius

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy. Nonetheless, Claudius was an Italian of Sabine origins.

Suetonius

Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly referred to as Suetonius, was a Roman historian who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of 12 successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, properly titled De vita Caesarum. Other works by Suetonius concerned the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many have been lost.