Aulus Caecina Severus (writer)

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Aulus Caecina the son of Aulus Caecina, was an Ancient Roman writer.

He took the side of Pompey in the civil wars, and published a violent tirade against Caesar, for which he was banished. He recanted in a work called Querelae, and was pardoned by Caesar following the intercession of his friends, above all, Cicero, who defended him in 69 BC with the speech Pro Caecina . [1]

Caecina was regarded as an important authority on the Etruscan system of divination ( Etrusca Disciplina ), which he endeavoured to place on a scientific footing by harmonizing its theories with the doctrines of the Stoics. [1]

Considerable fragments of his work (dealing with lightning) are to be found in Seneca ( Naturales quaestiones , ii. 31–49). Caecina was on intimate terms with Cicero, who speaks of him as a gifted and eloquent man and was no doubt considerably indebted to him in his own treatise De Divinatione . Some of their correspondence is preserved in Cicero's letters ( Epistulae ad Familiares vi. 5–8; see also ix. and xiii. 66). [1]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Wikisource-logo.svg One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Caecīna s.v. Aulus Caecina". Encyclopædia Britannica . 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 934.