Aulus Gellius | |
|---|---|
![Frontispiece to a 1706 Latin edition of the Attic Nights [fr] by Jakob Gronovius](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fwikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aAuli_Gellii_Noctium_Atticarum_1706.jpg) | |
| Born | c. 125 AD |
| Died | c. 180 AD |
Aulus Gellius (c. 125 – after 180 AD) was aRoman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up inRome. He was educated inAthens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for hisAttic Nights, acommonplace book, or compilation of notes ongrammar,philosophy,history,antiquarianism, and other subjects, preserving fragments of the works of many authors who might otherwise be unknown today.
Medieval manuscripts of theNoctes Atticae commonly gave the author's name in the form of "Agellius", which is used byPriscian;Lactantius,Servius andSaint Augustine had "A. Gellius" instead. Scholars from the Renaissance onwards hotly debated which one of the two transmitted names is correct (the other one being presumably a corruption) before settling on the latter of the two in modern times.[1]
The only source for the life of Aulus Gellius is the details recorded in his writings.[2] Internal evidence points to Gellius having been born between AD 125 and 128.[3] He was of good family and connections,[4] and he was probably born and certainly brought up inRome. He attended thePythian Games in the year 147,[3] and resided for a considerable period inAthens.[2] Gellius studied rhetoric underTitus Castricius andSulpicius Apollinaris; philosophy underCalvisius Taurus andPeregrinus Proteus; and enjoyed also the friendship and instruction ofFavorinus,Herodes Atticus, andFronto.[2]
He returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office.[5] He was appointed by thepraetor to act as an umpire in civil causes, and much of the time which he would gladly have devoted to literary pursuits was consequently occupied by judicial duties.[2]
Gellius' only known work is theAttic Nights (Latin:Noctes Atticae), which takes its name from having been begun during the long nights of a winter which he spent inAttica. He afterwards continued it in Rome. It is compiled out of anAdversaria, or commonplace book, in which he had jotted down everything of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in books, and it comprises notes ongrammar,geometry,philosophy,history and many other subjects.[5] One story is the fable ofAndrocles, which is often included in compilations ofAesop's fables, but was not originally from that source. Internal evidence ledLeofranc Holford-Strevens to date its publication in or after AD 177.[3]
The work, deliberately devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books. All have survived except the eighth, of which only the index survives. TheAttic Nights are valuable for the insight they afford into the nature of the society and pursuits of those times, and for its many excerpts from works of lost ancient authors.[5]
TheAttic Nights found many readers in antiquity. Writers who used this compilation includeApuleius,Lactantius,Nonius Marcellus,Ammianus Marcellinus, the anonymous author of theHistoria Augusta,Servius, andAugustine; but most notable is how Gellius' work was mined byMacrobius, "who, without mentioning his name, quotes Gellius verbatim throughout theSaturnalia, and is thus of the highest value for the text".[6]
Theeditio princeps was published atRome in 1469 byGiovanni Andrea Bussi, bishop-designate ofAleria.[7] The earliest critical edition was byLudovicus Carrio in 1585, published byHenricus Stephanus; however, the projected commentary fell victim to personal quarrels. Better known is the critical edition ofJohann Friedrich Gronovius; although he devoted his entire life to work on Gellius, he died in 1671 before his work could be completed. His sonJakob published most of his comments on Gellius in 1687, and brought out a revised text with all of his father's comments and other materials at Leyden in 1706; this later work became known as the "Gronoviana". According to Leofranc Holford-Strevens, the "Gronoviana" remained the standard text of Gellius for over a hundred years, until the edition ofMartin Hertz (Berlin, 1883–85; there is also a smaller edition by the same author, Berlin, 1886), revised by C. Hosius, 1903, with bibliography. A volume of selections, with notes and vocabulary, was published by Nall (London, 1888). There is an English translation by W. Beloe (London, 1795), and a French translation (1896).[5][8] A more recent English translation is byJohn Carew Rolfe (1927) for theLoeb Classical Library. More recently, Peter K. Marshall's edition (Oxford U. Press, 1968, 1990 (reissued with corrections) seems widespread both in print and digital (open access) formats.[9]
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One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gellius, Aulus".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 558.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Wm Ramsay (1870)."A.Gellius". InSmith, William (ed.).Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 2. p. 235.
