He was the author of a number of professional works, of which several are extant:
Ars maior – A commentary on Latin grammar.
Ars minor – A commentary on parts of Latin Speech.[2]
Commentvm Terenti, Publii Terentii Comoediae Sex with preface de tragoedia et comoedia (Commentary on Terence, Six Comedies of Terence with the preface About Tragedies and Comedies) – A commentary on the playwrightTerence and all six of his plays, probably compiled from other commentaries. The preface is a commentary on the "proper" structures of Tragedies and Comedies by Donatus titled, "About Comedies and Tragedies." It has never been translated to English as parts are missing from the original manuscript. It has partially been translated to German.
Explicatio in Ciceronis De inventione (An Explanation of theCicero'sDe Inventione)
Vita Vergili (Life ofVirgil) is thought to be based on a lostVita bySuetonius, together with the preface and introduction of his commentary on Virgil's works. A greatly expanded version ofServius's commentary exists, however, which is supplemented with frequent and extensive extracts from what is thought to be Donatus's commentary on Virgil.
Since the book is supposedly based on a Vita by Suetonius, it is also often titledVita Suetonii vulgo Donatiana ["The Life [of Virgil], [actually] by Suetonius, [but] commonly called 'by Donatus'"],[3] orVita Suetoniana-Donatiana.[4]
Donatus was a proponent of an early system ofpunctuation, consisting of dots placed in three successively higher positions to indicate successively longer pauses, roughly equivalent to the moderncomma,colon, andfull stop. This system remained current through the seventh century, when a more refined system created byIsidore of Seville gained prominence.[5]
In "About Comedy and Tragedy" in his Commentary on Terence, Donatus was the first person known to document the system whereby aplay is made up of three separate parts:protasis,epitasis, andcatastrophe.[6][7]
Aelius Donatus should not be confused withTiberius Claudius Donatus, also the author of a commentary (Interpretationes) on theAeneid, who lived about 50 years later.[2]
During the Renaissance, Donatus'sVita Vergili is often collected in anthologies of ancient literature. The humanists had interpolated other materials into theVita Vergili to add details and fill in gaps, and these interpolations are collectively calledDonatus auctus ["the augmented Donatus"].Donatus auctus was added some time around 1426–37, between the first and second redactions of theDe scriptoribus illustribus latinae linguae ["On Famous Writers of the Latin Language"] ofSicco Polenton, and it became the standard account of Virgil's life up until the 18th century.[8]
The text and translation is found in Ziolkowski and Putnam (2008: II.A.37, 345–69), with italics for theDonatus auctus and non-italics forVita Vergili.
See[9][10] for an evolutionary tree for all the versions ofVita Vergili.
ThisVita depicted Vergil as a wise scholar and expert in science, while disregarding the anecdotes portraying Vergil as a magician, which were added during the medieval period in otherVita.[4]
Donatus auctus contains one oft-quoted poem "sic vos non vobis", which was recorded inCodex Salmasianus. See section 251, 252 in I.1 ofLatin Anthology (B. G. Teubner, 1982).[11] The version recorded in Codex Salmasianus contained just two lines; it was expanded into 5 lines inDonatus auctus.
Schönberger, Axel (2008).Die Ars minor des Aelius Donatus. Lateinischer Text und kommentierte deutsche Übersetzung einer antiken Elementargrammatik aus dem 4. Jahrhundert nach Christus [The Ars minor of Aelius Donatus. Latin text and annotated German translation of an ancient elementary grammar from the 4th century AD]. Bibliotheca Romanica et Latina, volume 6. Frankfurt: Valentia,ISBN978-3-936132-31-1.
Schönberger, Axel (2009).Die Ars maior des Aelius Donatus. Lateinischer Text und kommentierte deutsche Übersetzung einer antiken Lateingrammatik des 4. Jahrhunderts für den fortgeschrittenen Anfängerunterricht [The Ars maior of Aelius Donatus. Latin text and annotated German translation of an ancient Latin grammar of the 4th century for advanced beginner lessons]. Bibliotheca Romanica et Latina, volume 7. Frankfurt: Valentia,ISBN978-3-936132-32-8.
Daintree, David. 1990. "The Virgil Commentary of Aelius Donatus: Black Hole or 'Éminence Grise'?"Greece & Rome 37.1: 65–79.
Demetriou, Chrysanthi. 2014. "Aelius Donatus and His Commentary on Terence’s Comedies." InThe Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy. Edited by Michael Fontaine and Adele C. Scafuro, 782–799. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dutsch, Dorota M. 2008.Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Farrell, Joseph. 2016. "Ancient Commentaries on Theocritus’ Idylls and Virgil's Eclogues." InClassical Commentaries: Explorations in a Scholarly Genre. Edited by Christina F. Kraus and Christopher Stray, 397–418. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ferri, Rolando. 2016. "An Ancient Grammarian's View of How the Spoken Language Works: Pragmalinguistic Observations in Donatus' Commentum Terentii." InThe Latin of the Grammarians: Reflections about Language in the Roman World. Edited by Rolando Ferri and Anna Zago. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers.
Gallo, Daniela (2023).Ars Riuipullensis. Commentum anonymum in Artem Donati. Firenze: Sismel Edizioni del Galluzzo.ISBN9788892902275.
Holtz, Louis (1981).Donat et la tradition de l’enseignement grammatical: Étude sur l’Ars Donati et sa diffusion (IVe-IXe siècle) et édition critique [Donatus and the tradition of grammatical teaching: A study of the Ars Donati and its dissemination (4th-9th centuries) and a critical edition]. Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique.
Jakobi, Rainer (1996).Die Kunst der Exegese im Terenzkommentar des Donat [The art of exegesis in Donat's commentary on Terence]. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter,ISBN3-11-014458-1.
Kragelund, Patrick. 2012. "Evidence for Performances of Republican Comedy in Fourth-century Rome."Classical Quarterly 62.1: 415–422.
Maltby, Robert. 2003. "The Role of Etymologies in Servius and Donatus." InEtymologia: Studies in Ancient Etymology. Proceedings of the Cambridge Conference on Ancient Etymology, 25–27 September 2000. Edited by Christos Nifadopoulos, 103–118. Münster: Nodus.
McGill, Scott. 2014. "The Plagiarized Virgil in Donatus, Servius, and the Anthologia Latina."Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 107: 365–383.
Murgia, Charles E. 2004. "The Truth about Vergil's Commentators." InRomane Memento: Vergil in the Fourth Century. Edited by Roger Rees, 189–200. London: Duckworth.
Stok, F. 2012. "Commenting on Virgil, from Aelius Donatus to Servius."Dead Sea Discoveries 19.3: 464–484.
Ziolkowski, Jan M., and Michael CJ Putnam, eds.The Virgilian tradition: the first fifteen hundred years. Yale University Press, 2017.
