Download Roman Writers

Roman Writers
1st known writer – Ennius – 204-169 BC
poet and teacher – only fragments
remain
Roman Comedy – 2 major writers
Plautus - 204-184 BC – Pseudolus
Terence – 166-159 BC – wrote and
produced plays – Adelphoe
Caesar – also a writer – wrote about his time
in Gaul – Dē Bellō Gallicō
Cicero – orator and writer – published his
speeches – letters written and received give
us a daily account of happenings in Rome –
philosophical works on oratory and
philosophy – Brutus; Dē Oratore
Catullus – poet during Republic – born in 84
BC – disappears in 54 BC – wrote love
poems, mostly to a woman he named Lesbia
after the poet Sappho of Lesbos – also wrote
short poems that mocked people like Caesar
and Cicero
Catullus:
Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti,
in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua.
Group of Writers under Maecenas
Poets: Vergil, Horace, Propertius, and Ovid
Historian: Livy
Vergil: wrote The Aeneid – story of Aeneas,
ancestor of Augustus – legendary founding story
– epic poem to honor Rome and its leader – he
died before it was finished – he wanted it
destroyed – his friends saved it and published it.
He also wrote poems about farming and being a
shepherd.
Vergil:
Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae.
Horace: Odes, Satires and Carmen Saeculare –
The Carmen Saeculare was written for a festival
in honor of Augustus
The Satires were a series of poems that made
fun of various things in society – he includes a
story about traveling with Vergil and Octavian to
Brundisium
Odes – a very important series of poems – there
were 4 books of Odes – some were about
philosophy – many were about Roman ideals –
some were about love
Ovid – wrote love poems, the Fasti and the
Metamorphoses
His love poems often got him into trouble with
Augustus because they didn’t coincide with
his morality and marriage laws – Ars Amatoria
Fasti – about the calendar and the different
festival days
Metamorphoses – various mythological stories
– some of which we only have because they
are included here – Daphne and Apollo,
Pyramis and Thisbe, Baucis and Philemon
Livy – a historian – he wrote 146 books about
the history of Rome from Romulus up to his
present time –
Other historians were Sallust and Tacitus –
Sallust’s work survives in fragments and
Tacitus wrote under the reign of Trajan –
concentrated on the Julio-Claudians after the
death of Augustus –
Other imperial writers of note:
Martial – (c. 43-104 AD) a poet who wrote epigrams – short
poems where all thoughts converge to a sharp point –
Epigrammata is his collection
Juvenal (c. 60-130 AD) – a satirist – wrote 16 books of
Satires – passionate, scornful and full of bitter invective
Pliny the Younger (62-114 AD) – most famous for his letters
(written from 97-108 AD), including ones about Vesuvius
and ones to Trajan – he also wrote poems and speeches Suetonius – a biographer who wrote under Hadrian
Apuleius – Metamorphosis – like a novel or story book –
first work like a modern story
Apuleius:
Erant in quadam civitate rex et regina. hi tres
numero filias forma conspicuas habuere, sed
maiores quidem natu, quamvis gratissima
specie, idonee tamen celebrari posse laudibus
humanis credebantur, at vero puellae iunioris
tam praecipua, tam praeclara pulchritudo nec
exprimi ac ne sufficienter quidem laudari
sermonis humani penuria poterat.