Gaius Valerius Flaccus

This article is about the poet Valerius Flaccus. For the consul of the late republic, see Gaius Valerius Flaccus (consul 93 BC) .

Gaius Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus († before 90 ) was a Roman poet under the emperors Vespasian and Titus .

Almost nothing is known for certain about the poet's life. Without sufficient justification, Valerius Flaccus was equated with a friend of Martial (I. 61. 76), who was born in Padua and lived in needy circumstances. In fact, however, he was a member of the Quindecimvirate , which looked after the Sibylline Books (i. 5), so it will have been rather wealthy. A note in the Vatican manuscript , which gives him the nickname Setinus Balbus , suggests that he comes from Setia in Lazio . The only ancient writer who mentions him is Quintilian ( Instit. Orat. X. I. 90), who laments his recent death as a great loss, and since Quintilian's text was completed around 90, it would mean the latest year of Flaccus's death.

His only known work, an epic called Argonautica , dedicated to Vespasian on the occasion of his departure for Britannia , may have been written during the siege or shortly after the capture of Jerusalem by Titus in 70; however, the drafting time is controversial. Since the eruption of Vesuvius (79) is mentioned, the work must have occupied him at any rate at that time.

The epic is based on the work of the same name by Apollonios of Rhodes . It breaks off at the end of the eighth book. Whether it was left unfinished or whether it was a mechanical loss of the last verses is debatable.

Editions and translations

• Widu-Wolfgang Ehlers (Ed.): Gai Valeri Flacci Setini Balbi Argonauticon libros octo. Teubner, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-519-01868-3 (also: Hamburg, University, habilitation paper, 1979).
• C. Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus: Argonautica. = The Argonaut trip. Latin text. Introduction, translation, short explanations, index of proper names and epilogue by Hermann Rupprecht. Stolz, Mitterfels 1987.
• C. Valerius Flaccus: Argonautica. = The mission of the Argonauts (= Studies in Classical Philology. Vol. 140). Latin / German. Edited, translated and commented by Paul Dräger . Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2003, ISBN 3-631-50799-2 .

literature

Overview display

• Michael von Albrecht : History of Roman literature from Andronicus to Boethius and its continued effect. Volume 2. 3rd, improved and expanded edition. De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2012, ISBN 978-3-11-026525-5 , pp. 785-795.

Investigations

• Eva Happle: The first three voyage episodes in the Argonautica of Apollonios Rhodios and Valerius Flaccus. Dissertation Freiburg 1957.
• Matthias Korn, Hans Jürgen Tschiedel (ed.): Ratis omnia vincet. Investigations into the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus (= Spudasmata . 48). Olms, Hildesheim et al. 1991, ISBN 3-487-09410-X .
• Ulrich Eigler , Eckard Lefèvre (ed.): Ratis omnia vincet. New investigations into the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus (= Zetemata . 98). Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44598-5 .
• François colon stone (ed.): Investigations on the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus. Ratis omnia vincet III (= Zetemata. 120). Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52018-9 .
• Christine Schmitz : Narrative repetition of mythical models in the Argonaut epic of Valerius Flaccus. In: Christine Schmitz, Anja Bettenworth (Ed.): People - Heros - God. World designs and life models in the myth of the premodern. Steiner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-515-09294-4 , pp. 119-148.

Web links

Wikisource: Gaius Valerius Flaccus  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Gaius Valerius Flaccus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Gaius Valerius Flaccus  in the German Digital Library