Nemesian

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Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus (short Nemesianus ) was a Latin poet of the second half of the third century .

Nemesian came from Carthage in Rome and, according to the Historia Augusta , is said to have fought a poetic contest with Emperor Numerian (283–284).

Nemesian wrote a number of teaching poems . The beginning of the hunting poem Cynegetica has been handed down . In an extensive Proömium , the author refers to a panegyric epic to be written by him on the emperors Numerian and Carinus (283–285) and shows his poetic scholarship by alluding to almost 20 mythological figures such as Niobe , Bacchus , Antigone . Subsequently, hunting dogs and horses treated. The poem breaks off when the hunt actually begins.

The best-known works of Nemesian are his four eclogues belonging to the late antique bucolic . The first contains a hymn to the late shepherd Meliboeus , the second is the shepherds Idas and Alcon's lamentation of love for the girl Donace, and the third a song by Pan on Bacchus . The fourth features the laments of the two unhappily loving shepherds, Lycidas and Mopsus.

The pastoral poems, based on Calpurnius Siculus (mid-1st century) and Virgil , are carefully composed. Eclogues I and III have an anthemic character, Eclogues II and IV have an erotic-bucolic character.

Text editions and translations

  • Rainer Jakobi (Ed.): Nemesianus, Cynegetica . Berlin / Boston 2014.
  • Dietmar Korzeniewski (ed.): Shepherd poems from the late Roman and Carolingian times . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1976, ISBN 3-534-06829-7 , pp. 1–4, 13–55, 110–133 (critical edition with introduction, translation and commentary)
  • Heather J. Williams (Ed.): The Eclogues and Cynegetica of Nemesianus . Brill, Leiden 1986.

literature

  • Bernd Effe , Gerhard Binder : Antique shepherd poetry. An introduction . 2nd Edition. Artemis and Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-538-07114-4 , pp. 126-141.
  • Kurt Smolak : M. Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus. 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. 308-315
  • Horst Walter: Studies on the shepherd poetry of Nemesians . Steiner, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-515-05110-4 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Nemesian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nemesianus, Marcus Aurelius Olympius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latin poet
DATE OF BIRTH 3rd century
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century or 4th century