Alfenus Varus was an ancient Roman jurist and writer who lived around the 1st century BC. [1]
Alfenus Varus was an ancient Roman jurist and writer who lived around the 1st century BC. [1]
Alfenus Varus (whose praenomen might have been Publius) was a pupil of Servius Sulpicius Rufus, and the only pupil of Servius from whom there are any excerpts in the Pandects . He composed 40 books of Digesta (‘Ordered Abstracts’), a title he was the first to employ. Of this work 70 excerpts survive in Justinian's compilation of the same name, the earliest coherent passages of legal writing to be preserved. [2]
A story about him is preserved by the scholiast Helenius Acron, in his notes on the satires of Horace. [3] The scholiast assumes the "Alfenus Vafer" of Horace to be the lawyer, and says that he was a native of Cremona, where he carried on the trade of a barber or a botcher of shoes, [4] that he came to Rome to become a student of Servius, attained the dignity of consulship, and was honored with a public funeral.
It is believed that Alfenus Varus the jurist is the same as the "Varus" who is addressed in Virgil's Eclogue 9 with a plea for him to save Virgil's home town of Mantua from losing its land in the confiscations of 40 BC and promising to honour him with a poem if he succeeded. Another of Virgil's poems, Eclogue 6, is indeed addressed to Varus, but it is not known to what extent Varus was able to help Mantua. [5] It seems that Varus was the land commissioner appointed to distribute lands of northern Italy to veteran soldiers in 40 BC. A sentence of a speech by Cornelius Gallus survives criticising Varus for extending the confiscations almost up to the walls of Mantua despite having been ordered to leave a three-mile tract of land around the city. [5] Virgil mentions Varus's military achievements (Ec. 6.7) but politely passes the task of describing them to other poets.
Varus was suffect consul in 39 BC. It is thought that the Publius Alfenus Varus who was consul in 2 AD may have been the jurist's son. [2]
There are 54 excerpts in the Pandects from the 40 books of the Digesta of Alfenus; but it is conjectured that Alfenus may have acted only as the editor of the work of Servius. It appears from the fragments of Alfenus that he was acquainted with the Greek language, and these fragments show that he wrote in a pure and perspicuous style. A passage that appears in the Pandects shows that he was not a stranger to the speculations of the philosophers. [6] According to Aulus Gellius, Alfenus was somewhat curious in matters of antiquity, and Gellius quotes a passage from the thirty-fourth book of his Digest in which Alfenus mentions one of the terms of a treaty between the Romans and the Carthaginians. [7] Alfenus is often cited by later jurists. The fragments in the Pandects are taken from the second to the seventh books of the Digest and there are fragments from the eighth book taken from the epitome by the jurist Paulus. The entire number of books appears from the Florentine Index; the passage in Gellius quotes the thirty-fourth book; and a passage of Paulus cites the forty-ninth book. [8] Whether the epitome of Paulus went further than the eighth book or not, is uncertain.
The passage in Gellius: "Alfenus ... in libro Digestorum trigesimo et quarto, Conjectaneorum [9] autem secundo," ("Alfenus says in the Digest and in the Conlectanea") &c., has given rise to some discussion. It is clear that the passage in the Conlectanea is attributed to Alfenus, and it is also clear that only one passage is meant; or at most the same passage is referred to as being in two different works. But apparently only one work is meant, and therefore we must conclude that the Digesta, which consisted of forty books, contained a subdivision called the Conlectanea. Some critics have conjectured that the Conlectanea is the compilation of Aufidius Namusa, so that the passage cited by Gellius appeared in both the original work by Alfenus, and in the copious compilation of Namusa, which is made from Alfenus and other pupils of Servius. [10] [11] [12]
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 to be dubious.
Aegle is the name of several different figures in Greek mythology:
The Digest, also known as the Pandects, was a compendium or digest of juristic writings on Roman law compiled by order of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in 530–533 AD. It is divided into 50 books.
The gens Licinia was a celebrated plebeian family at ancient Rome, which appears from the earliest days of the Republic until imperial times, and which eventually obtained the imperial dignity. The first of the gens to obtain the consulship was Gaius Licinius Calvus Stolo, who, as tribune of the plebs from 376 to 367 BC, prevented the election of any of the annual magistrates, until the patricians acquiesced to the passage of the lex Licinia Sextia, or Licinian Rogations. This law, named for Licinius and his colleague, Lucius Sextius, opened the consulship for the first time to the plebeians. Licinius himself was subsequently elected consul in 364 and 361 BC, and from this time, the Licinii became one of the most illustrious gentes in the Republic.
Marcus Porcius Cato Licinianus was son of Cato the Censor by his first wife Licinia, and thence called Licinianus, to distinguish him from his half-brother, Marcus Porcius Cato Salonianus, the son of Salonia. He was distinguished as a jurist.
The gens Quinctilia, also written Quintilia, was a patrician family at ancient Rome, dating from the earliest period of Roman history, and continuing well into imperial times. Despite its great antiquity, the gens never attained much historical importance. The only member who obtained the consulship under the Republic was Sextus Quinctilius in 453 BC. The gens produced numerous praetors and other magistrates, but did not obtain the consulship again for over four hundred years.
The gens Terentia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Dionysius mentions a Gaius Terentius Arsa, tribune of the plebs in 462 BC, but Livy calls him Terentilius, and from inscriptions this would seem to be a separate gens. No other Terentii appear in history until the time of the Second Punic War. Gaius Terentius Varro, one of the Roman commanders at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, was the first to hold the consulship. Members of this family are found as late as the third century AD.
Pacuvius Labeo was a Roman jurist and senator, and one of the murderers of Julius Caesar. He was father of the more eminent jurist Marcus Antistius Labeo, who lived under the emperor Augustus.
Sextus Pedius was a Roman jurist during the late first and early second centuries. He was a contemporary to the Roman Jurists Aulus Ofilius and Massurius Sabinus, and also mentioned in the writings of Pomponius.
Aufidius Namusa was a Roman jurist and writer of the 1st century BC. He was one of the numerous pupils of Servius Sulpicius Rufus. There were ten of Servius's students who wrote books, and from the works of eight of them Namusa compiled a work which was distributed into one hundred and eighty parts or divisions (libri). The work of Namusa is cited by Ulpian, Javolenus, and Paulus and we are thus made acquainted with some of the legal opinions of Servius.
The gens Alfena or Alfenia was a Roman family, known from the first century BC to the first century AD. The gens is known chiefly from five individuals, three of whom attained the consulship. Three shared the cognomen Varus, and may have been closely related.
The gens Juventia, occasionally written Jubentia, was an ancient plebeian family at Rome. After centuries of obscurity, the gens emerges into history with the appearance of Titus Juventius, a military tribune, in the beginning of the second century BC. The first of the Juventii to obtain the consulship was Marcus Juventius Thalna in 163 BC. But the family is renowned less for its statesmen than for its jurists, who flourished during the second century AD.
The gens Manilia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are frequently confused with the Manlii, Mallii, and Mamilii. Several of the Manilii were distinguished in the service of the Republic, with Manius Manilius obtaining the consulship in 149 BC; but the family itself remained small and relatively unimportant.
The gens Pacuvia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned during the second century BC, and from then down to the first century of the Empire Pacuvii are occasionally encountered in the historians. The first of the Pacuvii to achieve prominence at Rome, and certainly the most illustrious of the family, was the tragic poet Marcus Pacuvius.
The gens Plautia, sometimes written Plotia, was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens first appear in history in the middle of the fourth century BC, when Gaius Plautius Proculus obtained the consulship soon after that magistracy was opened to the plebeian order by the Licinio-Sextian rogations. Little is heard of the Plautii from the period of the Samnite Wars down to the late second century BC, but from then to imperial times they regularly held the consulship and other offices of importance. In the first century AD, the emperor Claudius, whose first wife was a member of this family, granted patrician status to one branch of the Plautii.
Titius Aristo was a distinguished jurist of ancient Rome, who lived around the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, under the emperor Trajan, and was a friend of Pliny the Younger. He is spoken of by Pliny in terms of the highest praise, as not only an excellent man and profound scholar, but a lawyer thoroughly acquainted with private and public law, and perfectly skilled in the practice of his profession.
Eclogue 6 is a pastoral poem by the Latin poet Virgil. In BC 40, a new distribution of lands took place in North Italy, and Alfenus Varus and Cornelius Gallus were appointed to carry it out. At his request that the poet would sing some epic strain, Virgil sent Varus these verses.
Eclogue 9 is a pastoral poem by the Latin poet Virgil, one of his series of ten poems known as the Eclogues. This eclogue describes the meeting of two countrymen Lycidas and Moeris. Moeris has been turned out of his farm and is taking some kid goats to town for the new occupant; young Lycidas is astonished, for he had heard that Menalcas had secured the safety of the district by his poetry, but Moeris replies that, so far from that being so, he and Menalcas himself had barely escaped with their lives: they then proceed to recall passages of Menalcas' poetry. Lycidas wants to continue singing to lighten the journey but the distressed Moeris begs him to cease, promising that they will sing again when Menalcas returns.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Smith, William, ed. (1870). "Varus, Alfenus". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology .
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