Get Our Extension

Works attributed to Florus

From Wikipedia, in a visual modern way

Three main sets of works are attributed to Florus (a Roman cognomen): Virgilius orator an poeta, an Epitome of Roman History and a collection of 14 short poems (66 lines in all). As to whether these were composed by the same person, or set of people, is unclear, but the works are variously attributed to:

  • Publius Annius Florus, described as a Roman poet and rhetorician.
  • Julius Florus, described as an ancient Roman poet, orator, and author who was born around 74 AD and died around 130 AD[1] Florus was born in Africa,[1] but raised in Rome.
  • Lucius Annaeus Florus (circa 74 – 130 AD[2]), a Roman historian, who lived in the time of Trajan and Hadrian and was also born in Africa.

Virgilius orator an poeta

Hadrian
Hadrian

The introduction to a dialogue called Virgilius orator an poeta is extant, in which the author (whose name is given as Publius Annius Florus) states that he was born in Africa, and at an early age took part in the literary contests on the Capitol instituted by Domitian. Having been refused a prize owing to the prejudice against North African provincials, he left Rome in disgust, and after travelling for some time, set up at Tarraco as a teacher of rhetoric. Here he was persuaded by an acquaintance to return to Rome, for it is generally agreed that he is the Florus who wrote the well-known lines quoted together with Hadrian's answer by Aelius Spartianus (Hadrian I 6). Twenty-six trochaic tetrameters, De qualitate vitae, and five graceful hexameters, De rosis, are also attributed to him.[3]

Discover more about Virgilius orator an poeta related topics

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.

Capitoline Hill

Capitoline Hill

The Capitolium or Capitoline Hill, between the Forum and the Campus Martius, is one of the Seven Hills of Rome.

Domitian

Domitian

Domitian was a Roman emperor who reigned from 81 to 96. The son of Vespasian and the younger brother of Titus, his two predecessors on the throne, he was the last member of the Flavian dynasty. Described as "a ruthless but efficient autocrat", his authoritarian style of ruling put him at sharp odds with the Senate, whose powers he drastically curtailed.

Tarragona

Tarragona

Tarragona is a port city located in northeast Spain on the Costa Daurada by the Mediterranean Sea. Founded before the fifth century BC, it is the capital of the Province of Tarragona, and part of Tarragonès and Catalonia. Geographically, it is bordered on the north by the Province of Barcelona and the Province of Lleida. The city has a population of 136,150 (2021).

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.

Poems

Florus was also an established poet.[4] He was once thought to have been "the first in order of a number of second-century North African writers who exercised a considerable influence on Latin literature, and also the first of the poetae neoterici or novelli (new-fashioned poets) of Hadrian's reign, whose special characteristic was the use of lighter and graceful meters (anapaestic and iambic dimeters), which had hitherto found little favour."[3] Since Cameron's article on the topic, however, the existence of such a school has been widely called into question, in part because the remnants of all poets supposedly involved are too scantily attested for any definitive judgment.[5]

The little poems will be found in E. Bahrens, Poëtae Latini minores (1879–1883). There is one 4-line poem in iambic dimeter catalectic; 8 short poems (26 lines in all) in trochaic septenarius; and 5 poems about roses in dactylic hexameters (36 lines in all). For an unlikely identification of Florus with the author of the Pervigilium Veneris see E. H. O. Müller, De P. Anino Floro poéta et de Pervigilio Veneris (1855), and, for the poet's relations with Hadrian, Franz Eyssenhardt, Hadrian und Florus (1882); see also Friedrich Marx in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopädie, i. pt. 2 (1894).[3]

Some his poems include "Quality of Life", "Roses in Springtime", "Roses", "The Rose", "Venus’ Rose-Garden", and "The Nine Muses". Florus’ better-known poetry is also associated with his smaller poems that he would write to Hadrian out of admiration for the emperor.[6]

Discover more about Poems related topics

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.

Neoteric

Neoteric

The Neoterikoi or Neoterics were a series of avant-garde Latin poets who wrote in the 1st century BCE. Neoteric poets deliberately turned away from classical Homeric epic poetry. Rather than focusing on the feats of ancient heroes and gods, they propagated a new style of poetry through stories that operated on a smaller scale in regard to themes and setting.

Trochaic septenarius

Trochaic septenarius

In ancient Greek and Latin literature, the trochaic septenarius or trochaic tetrameter catalectic is one of two major forms of poetic metre based on the trochee as its dominant rhythmic unit, the other being much rarer trochaic octonarius. It is used in drama and less often in poetry. Together with the iambic senarius, it is one of the two most commonly used metres of Latin comedy. It has a long history dating back to the 7th century BC.

Dactylic hexameter

Dactylic hexameter

Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter or rhythmic scheme frequently used in Ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The scheme of the hexameter is usually as follows :| – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – u u | – –

Pervigilium Veneris

Pervigilium Veneris

Pervigilium Veneris is a Latin poem of uncertain date, variously assigned to the 2nd, 4th or 5th centuries.

Franz Eyssenhardt

Franz Eyssenhardt

Franz Eyssenhardt was a German classical philologist born in Berlin.

Friedrich Marx

Friedrich Marx

Friedrich Marx was a German classical philologist born in Bessungen — today part of the city of Darmstadt.

Epitome of Roman History

The two books of the Epitome of Roman History were written in admiration of the Roman people.[1] The books illuminate many historical events in a favorable tone for the Roman citizens.[7] The book is mainly based on Livy's enormous Ab Urbe Condita Libri. It consists of a brief sketch of the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to the closing of the Gates of Janus by Augustus in 25 BC. The work, which is called Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum omnium annorum DCC Libri duo, is written in a bombastic and rhetorical style – a panegyric of the greatness of Rome, the life of which is divided into the periods of infancy, youth and manhood.

According to Edward Forster, Florus' history is largely politically unbiased, except when discussing the civil wars where he favours Caesar over Pompey.[8] The first book of the Epitome of Roman History is mainly about the establishment and growth of Rome.[7] The second is mainly about the decline of Rome and its changing morals.[7]

Florus has taken some criticism on his writing due to inaccuracies found chronologically and geographically in his stories,[4] but even so, the Epitome of Roman History was vastly popular during the late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, as well as being used as a school book until the 19th century.[9] In the manuscripts, the writer is variously named as Julius Florus, Lucius Anneus Florus, or simply Annaeus Florus. From certain similarities of style, he has been identified as Publius Annius Florus, poet, rhetorician and friend of Hadrian, author of a dialogue on the question of whether Virgil was an orator or poet, of which the introduction has been preserved.

The most accessible modern text and translation are in the Loeb Classical Library (no. 231, published 1984, ISBN 0-674-99254-7).

Christopher Plantin, Antwerp, in 1567, published two Lucius Florus texts (two title pages) in one volume. The titles were roughly as follows: 1) L.IVLII Flori de Gestis Romanorum, Historiarum; 2) Commentarius I STADII L.IVLII Flori de Gestis Romanorum, Historiarum. The first title has 149 pages; the second has 222 pages plus an index in a 12mo-size book.

Discover more about Epitome of Roman History related topics

Livy

Livy

Titus Livius, known in English as Livy, was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled Ab Urbe Condita, ''From the Founding of the City'', covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a friend of Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history.

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.

Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, 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: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid. A number of minor poems, collected in the Appendix Vergiliana, were attributed to him in ancient times, but modern scholars consider his authorship of these poems as dubious.

Loeb Classical Library

Loeb Classical Library

The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books originally published by Heinemann in London, but is currently published by Harvard University Press. The library contains important works of ancient Greek and Latin literature designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each left-hand page, and a fairly literal translation on the facing page. The General Editor is Jeffrey Henderson, holder of the William Goodwin Aurelio Professorship of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University.

Attribution of the works

Tentative attribution Description Works Dates Other bio Identified with
Florus "a Roman historian" Epitome of Roman History circa 74-130 born in Africa; lived in the time of Trajan and Hadrian "In the manuscripts, the writer is variously named as Julius Florus, Lucius Anneus Florus, or simply Annaeus Florus"; "he has been identified as Publius Annius Florus"
Julius Florus "an ancient Roman poet, orator, and author" Epitome of Roman History ; poems including "Quality of Life", "Roses in Springtime", "Roses", "The Rose", "Venus’ Rose-Garden", and "The Nine Muses" circa 74-130 born in Africa; accompanied Tiberius to Armenia; lost Domitian's Capital Competition due to prejudice; travelled in the Greek Empire; founded a school in Tarraco, Spain; returned to Rome; a friend of Hadrian "variously identified with Julius Florus, a distinguished orator and uncle of Julius Secundus, an intimate friend of Quintilian (Instit. x. 3, 13); with the leader of an insurrection of the Treviri (Tacitus, Ann. iii. 40); with the Postumus of Horace (Odes, ii. 14) and even with the historian Florus."[10]
Publius Annius Florus "Roman poet and rhetorician" Virgilius orator an poeta; 26 trochaic tetrameters, De qualitate vitae, and five graceful hexameters, De rosis born in Africa; accompanied Tiberius to Armenia; lost Domitian's Capital Competition due to prejudice; travelled; founded a school in Tarraco; returned to Rome; knew Hadrian "identified by some authorities with the historian Florus." "generally agreed that he is the Florus who wrote the well-known lines quoted together with Hadrian's answer by Aelius Spartianus" "for an unlikely identification of Florus with the author of the Pervigilium Veneris see E. H. O. Müller"[3]

Discover more about Attribution of the works related topics

Tentative biography

The Florus identified as Julius Florus was one of the young men who accompanied Tiberius on his mission to settle the affairs of Armenia. He has been variously identified with Julius Florus, a distinguished orator and uncle of Julius Secundus, an intimate friend of Quintilian (Instit. x. 3, 13); with the leader of an insurrection of the Treviri (Tacitus, Ann. iii. 40); with the Postumus of Horace (Odes, ii. 14) and even with the historian Florus.[10]

Under Domitian's rule, he competed in the Capital Competition,[4] which was an event in which poets received rewards and recognition from the emperor himself.[4] Although he acquired great applause from the crowds, he was not victorious in the event. Florus himself blamed his loss on favoritism on behalf of the emperor.[9]

Shortly after his defeat, Florus departed from Rome to travel abroad.[9] His travels are said to have taken him through the Greek-speaking sections of the Roman Empire, taking in Sicily, Crete, the Cyclades, Rhodes, and Egypt.[9]

At the conclusion of his travels, he resided in Tarraco, Spain.[4] In Tarraco, Florus founded a school and taught literature.[9] During this time, he also began to write the Epitome of Roman History.[4]

After many years in Spain, he eventually migrated back to Rome during the rule of Hadrian (117-138 AD).[4] Hadrian and Florus became very close friends, and Florus was rumored to be involved in government affairs during the second half of Hadrian's rule.[4]

Discover more about Tentative biography related topics

Tiberius

Tiberius

Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father was the politician Tiberius Claudius Nero and his mother was Livia Drusilla, who would eventually divorce his father, and marry the future-emperor Augustus in 38 BC. Following the untimely deaths of Augustus' two grandsons and adopted heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Tiberius was designated Augustus' successor. Prior to this, Tiberius had proved himself an able diplomat, and one of the most successful Roman generals: his conquests of Pannonia, Dalmatia, Raetia, and (temporarily) parts of Germania laid the foundations for the empire's northern frontier.

Armenia

Armenia

Armenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the Lachin corridor and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center.

Quintilian

Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman educator and rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing. In English translation, he is usually referred to as Quintilian, although the alternate spellings of Quintillian and Quinctilian are occasionally seen, the latter in older texts.

Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus, was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.

Annals (Tacitus)

Annals (Tacitus)

The Annals by Roman historian and senator Tacitus is a history of the Roman Empire from the reign of Tiberius to that of Nero, the years AD 14–68. The Annals are an important source for modern understanding of the history of the Roman Empire during the 1st century AD; it is Tacitus' final work, and modern historians generally consider it his greatest writing. Historian Ronald Mellor calls it "Tacitus's crowning achievement", which represents the "pinnacle of Roman historical writing".

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.

Wikisource

Wikisource

Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project ; multiple Wikisources make up the overall project of Wikisource. The project's aim is to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, it has expanded to become a general-content library. The project officially began on November 24, 2003 under the name Project Sourceberg, a play on the famous Project Gutenberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name.

Source: "Works attributed to Florus", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, January 28th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_attributed_to_Florus.

Enjoying Wikiz?

Enjoying Wikiz?

Get our FREE extension now!

References
  1. ^ a b c "Epitome of Roman History".
  2. ^ Saecula Latina (1962), p. 215
  3. ^ a b c d Chisholm 1911a.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h "LacusCurtius • Florus — Epitome".
  5. ^ "Cameron, A. "Poetae Novelli" in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 84 (1980), pp. 127-175.
  6. ^ "Florus: Introduction". Lacus Curtius. 2014. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
  7. ^ a b c Lucius Annaeus, Florus (1929). Epitome of Roman History. London: Heinemann.
  8. ^ Edward S. Forster. "Introduction to Florus' Epitome". LacusCurtius. Retrieved 11 July 2022.
  9. ^ a b c d e "P. Annius Florus".
  10. ^ a b Chisholm 1911b.
Bibliography
  • Jona Lendering. "Publius Annius Florus". Livius.org.
  • José Miguel Alonso-Nuñez (2006). "Floro y los historiadores contemporáneos". Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis. 42: 117–126.
  • W. den Boer (1972). Some Minor Roman Historians. Leiden: Brill.
  • Florus (2005) [c. 120]. Römische Geschichte : lateinisch und deutsch. Eingel., übers. und kommentiert von Günter Laser. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
External links


The content of this page is based on the Wikipedia article written by contributors..
The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence & the media files are available under their respective licenses; additional terms may apply.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use & Privacy Policy.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization & is not affiliated to WikiZ.com.