Golden latinity

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Golden Latinity is a term still occasionally used in Classical Philology today for the literary epoch of the period from approx. 60 BC. BC to AD 40, in which Roman poetry and prose, as it was long assumed, reached the level of their highest, classical perfection, both in terms of content, language and form. The authors of this epoch include Cicero , Caesar , Sallust , Livius as well as Virgil and Horace .

The counterpart to the Golden Latinity is the subsequent epoch of the Silver Latinity , in which, according to the traditional assumption, a coarsening of the content and a drop in the linguistic level due to intrusive elements of the colloquial language can be noticed, which, however, was also still significant and exemplary . The authors of this epoch include Seneca , Lucan , Pliny the Younger and Tacitus , the latter being an exception due to his very individual style of language. Apuleius (around 170 AD) is traditionally considered the last author of this epoch .

The Silver Latinity is followed by the transition to Latin literature of late antiquity (3rd to 6th centuries), in which the linguistic expression in vocabulary, grammar and rhetorical forms increasingly deviated from the classical ideal of the Ciceronian style. Today, however, late Latin authors such as Ammian , Claudian , Augustine von Hippo or Gorippus are valued more highly than before.

The subdivision into “golden” and “silver” Latinity therefore reflects an approach to dealing with ancient literature that is now considered obsolete: Behind it is an idea of ​​decadence, which elevates a certain level of linguistic development to an ideal and all deviations and subsequent changes interpreted as decline. This way of thinking is basically already ancient, since as early as the High Imperial Era (2nd century) many Roman authors oriented themselves towards Cicero, Caesar and Virgil, but according to today's researchers of Latin literature and the character of each language, it is constantly changing subject, not fair.

See also

literature

  • Wolfram Ax: text and style. Studies on ancient literature and its reception . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-515-08825-1 , pp. 111-130.