Merobaudes (poet)

Last updated

Flavius Merobaudes was a 5th-century Latin rhetorician and poet.

Merobaudes was a Roman of Frankish origin who was raised in Spain, and likely was a descendant of the famous general of the same name who flourished during the fourth century. [1]

He was the official laureate of Valentinian III and Aetius. Until the beginning of the 19th century he was known only from the notice of him in the Chronicle (year 443) of his contemporary Hydatius, where he is praised as a poet and orator, and mention is made of statues set up in his honour. [2]

In 1813 the base of a statue was discovered at Rome, with a long inscription belonging to the year 435 (CIL vi. 1724) upon Flavius Merobaudes, celebrating his merits as warrior and poet. Ten years later, B. G. Niebuhr discovered some Latin verses on a palimpsest in the monastery of St Gall, the authorship of which was traced to Merobaudes, owing to the great similarity of the language in the prose preface to that of the inscription. [2]

Formerly the only piece known under the name of Merobaudes was a short poem (30 hexameters) De Christo, attributed to him by one manuscript, to Claudian by another; but Ebert is inclined to dispute the claim of Merobaudes to be considered either the author of the De Christo or a Christian. [2]

The Panegyric and minor poems have been edited by Niebuhr (1824); by Immanuel Bekker in the Bonn Corpus scriptorum hist. (1836); the De Christo in T. Birt's Claudian (1892), where the authorship of Merobaudes is upheld; [2] most recently F. Bücheler and A. Riese, Anthologia latina sive poesis latinae supplementum (2nd ed. of vol. 1, Leipzig, 1894–1926) 1, 2: pp. 327–328, no. 878. See also A. Ebert, Geschichte der Literatur des Mittelalters im Abendlande (1889). English translation by F.M. Clover, "Flavius Merobaudes: A Translation and Historical Commentary", Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Vol. 61, No. 1 (January, 1971), pp. 1–78

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aratus</span> Ancient didactic Greek poet

Aratus was a Greek didactic poet. His major extant work is his hexameter poem Phenomena, the first half of which is a verse setting of a lost work of the same name by Eudoxus of Cnidus. It describes the constellations and other celestial phenomena. The second half is called the Diosemeia, and is chiefly about weather lore. Although Aratus was somewhat ignorant of Greek astronomy, his poem was very popular in the Greek and Roman world, as is proven by the large number of commentaries and Latin translations, some of which survive.

Claudius Claudianus, known in English as Claudian, was a Latin poet associated with the court of the Roman emperor Honorius at Mediolanum (Milan), and particularly with the general Stilicho. His work, written almost entirely in hexameters or elegiac couplets, falls into three main categories: poems for Honorius, poems for Stilicho, and mythological epic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theocritus</span> 3rd-century BC Greek poet

Theocritus was a Greek poet from Sicily, Magna Graecia, and the creator of Ancient Greek pastoral poetry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tibullus</span> Roman poet and writer of elegies (c. 55–c. 19 BC)

Albius Tibullus was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Girolamo Fracastoro</span> Italian physician, poet, and scholar

Girolamo Fracastoro was an Italian physician, poet, and scholar in mathematics, geography and astronomy. Fracastoro subscribed to the philosophy of atomism, and rejected appeals to hidden causes in scientific investigation. His studies of the mode of syphilis transmission are an early example of epidemiology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barthold Georg Niebuhr</span> Danish-German statesman and historian (1776–1831)

Barthold Georg Niebuhr was a Danish–German statesman, banker, and historian who became Germany's leading historian of Ancient Rome and a founding father of modern scholarly historiography. By 1810 Niebuhr was inspiring German patriotism in students at the University of Berlin by his analysis of Roman economy and government. Niebuhr was a leader of the Romantic era and symbol of German national spirit that emerged after the defeat at Jena. But he was also deeply rooted in the classical spirit of the Age of Enlightenment in his intellectual presuppositions, his use of philologic analysis, and his emphasis on both general and particular phenomena in history.

<i>Greek Anthology</i> Ancient collection of short poems

The Greek Anthology is a collection of poems, mostly epigrams, that span the Classical and Byzantine periods of Greek literature. Most of the material of the Greek Anthology comes from two manuscripts, the Palatine Anthology of the 10th century and the Anthology of Planudes of the 14th century.

Marcus Valerius Messalla Corvinus was a Roman general, author, and patron of literature and art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verrius Flaccus</span> Roman lexicographer and writer (55 BC-20 AD)

Marcus Verrius Flaccus was a Roman grammarian and teacher who flourished under Augustus and Tiberius.

Rutilius Claudius Namatianus was a Roman Imperial poet, best known for his Latin poem, De reditu suo, in elegiac metre, describing a coastal voyage from Rome to Gaul in 417. The poem was in two books; the exordium of the first and the greater part of the second have been lost. What remains consists of about seven hundred lines.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes</span>

Louis-Marcelin, marquis de Fontanes was a French poet and politician.

Thomas Rymer was an English poet, critic, antiquary and historian. His lasting contribution was to compile and publish 16 volumes of the first edition of Foedera, a work in 20 volumes conveying agreements between The Crown of England and foreign powers since 1101. He held the office of English Historiographer Royal from 1692 to 1714. He is credited with coining the phrase "poetic justice" in The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider'd (1678).

Magnus Felix Ennodius was Bishop of Pavia in 514, and a Latin rhetorician and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coelius Sedulius</span> 5th-century Christian poet

Sedulius was a Christian poet of the first half of the 5th century.

Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus was a Roman poet thought to have been a native of Carthage and flourished about AD 283. He was a popular poet at the court of the Roman emperor Carus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tarafa</span>

Tarafa, was a 6th century Arabian poet of the tribe of the Bakr. He is one of the seven poets of the most celebrated anthology of ancient Arabic poetry, known as the Mo'allakat, however just one of his poems is included. His fellow poets preserved in this work are Al-Nabigha, Antarah ibn Shaddad, Zuhayr bin Abi Sulma, 'Alqama ibn 'Abada and Imru' al-Qais.

Flavius Cresconius Corippus was a late Berber-Roman epic poet of the 6th century, who flourished under East Roman Emperors Justinian I and Justin II. His major works are the epic poem Iohannis and the panegyric In laudem Iustini minoris. Corippus was probably the last important Latin author of Late Antiquity.

George of Pisidia was a Byzantine poet, born in Pisidia, who flourished during the 7th century AD.

Flavius Mallius Theodorus was a Roman politician and author of an extant treatise on metres, De metris, one of the best of its kind. He also studied philosophy, astronomy and geometry, and wrote works on those subjects, which, together with his consulship, formed the subject of a panegyric by Claudian.

Croceae or Krokeai was a village of ancient Laconia on the road from Sparta to Gythium, and near the latter place. It was celebrated for its marble quarries. Pausanias describes the marble as difficult to work, but when wrought forming beautiful decorations for temples, baths, and fountains. There was a marble statue of Zeus Croceates before the village, and at the quarries bronze statues of the Dioscuri. The most celebrated of the Corinthian baths was adorned with marble from the quarries at Croceae. A number of blocks of green Laconian porphyry from the quarries at Croceae have been found in the palace of Minos at Cnossus.

References

  1. Bachrach, Bernard S. (University of Minnesota. Center for Early Modern History). City Walls: The Urban Enceinte in Global Perspective. Cambridge University Press (2000), p. 196 .
  2. 1 2 3 4 Chisholm 1911.