Gaius Valerius Catullus, known as Catullus, was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexually explicit themes.
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature flourished for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into several periods: Early Latin literature, The Golden Age, The Imperial Period and Late Antiquity.
Classical Latin is the form of Literary Latin recognized as a literary standard by writers of the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It formed parallel to Vulgar Latin around 75 BC out of Old Latin, and developed by the 3rd century AD into Late Latin. In some later periods, the former was regarded as good or proper Latin; the latter as debased, degenerate, or corrupted. The word Latin is now understood by default to mean "Classical Latin"; for example, modern Latin textbooks almost exclusively teach Classical Latin.
Porcia, occasionally spelled Portia, especially in 18th-century English literature, was a Roman woman who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis and his first wife Atilia. She is best known for being the second wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Julius Caesar's assassins, and appears primarily in the letters of Cicero.
Gaius Trebatius Testa was a jurist of ancient Rome, whose family, and himself, originated from Elea.
Pro Caelio is a speech given on 4 April 56 BC, by the famed Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero in defence of Marcus Caelius Rufus, who had once been Cicero's pupil but more recently had become estranged from him. Cicero's reasons for defending Caelius are uncertain, but one motive may have been his hatred of Publius Clodius Pulcher, who two years earlier had passed a law which had forced Cicero into exile, and whose sister Cicero attacks mercilessly in this speech.
Marcus Caelius Rufus was an orator and politician in the late Roman Republic. He was born into a wealthy equestrian family from Interamnia Praetuttiorum, on the central east coast of Italy. He is best known for his prosecution of Gaius Antonius Hybrida in 59 BC. He was also known for his trial for public violence in March 56 BC, when Cicero defended him in the extant speech Pro Caelio, and as both recipient and author of some of the best-written letters in the ad Familiares corpus of Cicero's extant correspondence. He may be the Rufus named in the poems of Catullus.
Attica was the daughter of Cicero's Epicurean friend Titus Pomponius Atticus. She was also the first wife of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, close friend of the emperor Augustus.
Latin obscenity is the profane, indecent, or impolite vocabulary of Latin, and its uses. Words deemed obscene were described as obsc(a)ena, or improba. Documented obscenities occurred rarely in classical Latin literature, limited to certain types of writing such as epigrams, but they are commonly used in the graffiti written on the walls of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Among the documents of interest in this area is a letter written by Cicero in 45 BC to a friend called Paetus, in which he alludes to a number of obscene words without actually naming them.
The poetry of Gaius Valerius Catullus was written towards the end of the Roman Republic in the period between 62 and 54 BC.
Mamurra was a Roman military officer who served under Julius Caesar.
The Satires is a collection of satirical poems written in Latin dactylic hexameters by the Roman poet Horace. Published probably in 35 BC and at the latest, by 33 BC, the first book of Satires represents Horace's first published work. It established him as one of the great poetic talents of the Augustan Age. The second book was published in 30 BC as a sequel.
The gens Pinaria was one of the most ancient patrician families at Rome. According to tradition, the gens originated long before the founding of the city. The Pinarii are mentioned under the kings, and members of this gens attained the highest offices of the Roman state soon after the establishment of the Republic, beginning with Publius Pinarius Mamercinus Rufus, consul in 489 BC.
Quintus Valerius Orca was a Roman praetor, a governor of the Roman province of Africa, and a commanding officer under Julius Caesar in the civil war against Pompeius Magnus and the senatorial elite. The main sources for Orca's life are letters written to him by Cicero and passages in Caesar's Bellum Civile.
The gens Titia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. The gens is rarely mentioned in the Republican period, and did not rise out of obscurity till a very late time. None of its members obtained the consulship under the Republic, and the first person of the name who held this office was Marcus Titius in BC 31.
The gens Fannia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which first appears in history during the second century BC. The first member of this gens to attain the consulship was Gaius Fannius Strabo, in 161 BC.
The gens Opimia, also written Opeimia on coins, was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned during the time of the Samnite Wars, and they are mentioned in Roman historians from then down to the end of the Republic. The first of the Opimii to obtain the consulship was Quintus Opimius in 154 BC.
The gens Staberia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the final decades of the Republic, but they never achieved much importance. The most illustrious of the Staberii may have been the Grammarian Staberius Eros, though he was a freedman. One of this family served as a military tribune in the time of Vespasian, but none of the Staberii obtained any of the higher offices of the Roman state; the consul Marcus Pompeius Silvanus Staberius Flavianus belonged to the Pompeia gens, although he was probably descended from the Staberii through a female line.
The gens Tigellia was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Almost no members of this gens are mentioned by Roman writers, but a few are known from inscriptions.
The gens Valgia was a minor plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned in the final century of the Republic. The most illustrious of the Valgii was Gaius Valgius Rufus, a poet contemporary with Horace, who became consul suffectus in 12 BC.