Avienus

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Postumius Rufius Festus Avienus was a Latin poet from the 2nd half of the 4th century from Volsinii (now Bolsena ).

Life

The exact dates of his life are unknown, his creative time is around the middle of the century ( floruit around 360 AD). So he was a contemporary of Emperor Julian . Avien may have held high political offices. The exact name of the author is controversial (Avienus? Avienius?). Sometimes he was confused with the fable writer Avianus or taken together.

Works

The works Phaenomena ( Aratea des Avienus according to the astronomy of Aratos von Soloi ), Descriptio orbis terrae (after Dionysios Periegetes ) and Ora maritima have been preserved by Avienus . In addition, a fragment about comets has come down to us from the Vergil commentator Servius . The texts are only very sparsely attested: in addition to the first edition ( editio princeps ) from 1488, there are only two text witnesses that contain larger parts or the whole, and a few manuscripts from the Phaenomena of Germanicus . The pagan author Avien mainly mediated in his Phaenomena a syncretic worldview (see. Syncretism ) that greatly henotheistisch (see. Henotheism ) is marked: a single divinity pervades the cosmos in many guises. Weber (see below) in particular works out the type of representation influenced by Gnosis .

Text editions and translations

  • Alfred Holder : Rufi Festi Avieni Carmina . Innsbruck 1887 (in many ways outdated complete edition of the works).

Phenomena

  • Alfred Breysig : Rufi Festi Avieni Aratea . Teubner, Leipzig 1882 (text edition, digitized version ).
  • Gregor Fischer, Friedrich Köppner: The starry sky. Attempt to translate the Phaenomena Aratea by Rufus Festus Avienus . In: Program of the Communal-Obergymnasium in Komotau. Komotau 1893 (German translation, part 1).
  • Gregor Fischer: The starry sky. Attempt to translate the Aratea of ​​Rufus Festus Avienus . In: Program of the Communal-Obergymnasium in Komotau. Komotau 1896 (German translation, part 2).
  • Jean Soubiran: Aviénus, les phénomènes d'Aratos . Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1981, ISBN 2-251-11020-8 ; ISBN 2-251-01020-3 (text edition and French translation).

Ora maritima

  • André Berthelot : Ora maritima . Paris 1934 (reference text).
  • Dietrich Stichtenoth: Ora maritima, Latin and German . WBG, Darmstadt 1968 (the Latin text reproduces that of the first edition and is therefore unusable)
  • John Paul Murphy: Ora maritima or Description of the seacoast . Ares Publications, Chicago 1977, ISBN 0-89005-175-5 .

Descriptio orbis terrae

  • Paul van de Woestijne: La Descriptio orbis terrae d'Avienus (= Works uitgegeven door de Faculteit van de Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, Rijksuniversiteit te Gent 128). Brugge 1961 (reference text).
  • Amedeo A. Raschieri: L'orbis terrae di Avieno . Bonanno, Acireale / Rome 2010, ISBN 978-88-7796-623-0 .

literature

  • Franco Bellandi, Emanuele Berti, Maurizio Ciappi: Iustissima Virgo. Il mito della Vergine in Germanico e in Avieno (saggio di commento a Germanico Arati Phaen. 96-139 e Avieno Arati Phaen. 273–352). Giardini, Pisa 2001, ISBN 88-427-0319-2 .
  • Alan Cameron : Avienus or Avienius? In: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 108, 1995, pp. 252-262
  • Manfred Wacht: Concordantia in Rufium Festum Avienum . Olms 1995
  • Martin Fiedler: Commentary by V. 367–746 of Avien's redesign of the Phainomena Arats , Saur, Munich / Leipzig 2004, ISBN 3-598-77823-6 .
  • Kurt Smolak : Postumius Rufius Festus Avienus . In: Reinhart Herzog (ed.): Restoration and renewal. The Latin literature from 284 to 374 AD (= Handbook of the Latin Literature of Antiquity , Volume 5). CH Beck, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-31863-0 , pp. 320-327.
  • Dorothea Weber : Aviens Phaenomena, an Arat adaptation from Latin late antiquity. Studies on selected games (= dissertations from the University of Vienna, vol. 173). VWGÖ, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-85369-622-8 .
  • Lothar Willms: translation, philological commentary and comparative interpretation of the zodiac in Avien's Phaenomena (verses 1014-1325) (= AKAN individual writings - ancient natural sciences and their reception, vol. 8). Scientific publishing house Trier, Trier 2014, ISBN 978-3-86821-508-3 .
  • Paul van de Woestijne: De vroegste uitgaven van Avienus' Descriptio orbis terrae (1488-1515) . 1959
  • Hubert Zehnacker: D'Aratos à Aviénus: Astronomie et idéologie . In: Illinois Classical Studies 44, 1989, pp. 317-329.

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Fiedler, p. IX, Zehnacker. A broad description of the biography can be found in Soubiran's “Introduction” to the text edition of the Phaenomena , p. 7 ff. There, the documents on the Vita (including the inscription from Bulla Regia , North Africa) are discussed in detail.
  2. ↑ Soubiran, p. 15 ff.
  3. ↑ See the article by Cameron.
  4. ↑ Soubiran, pp. 75 ff.
  5. ↑ See Fiedler S. XI, Weber, Zehnacker.
personal data
SURNAME Avienus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Postumius Rufius Festus Avienus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latin poet
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Bolsena
DATE OF DEATH 4th century or 5th century