Terentianus Maurus

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Terentianus Maurus was a Latin grammarian and theoretician of metrics who probably worked towards the end of the 2nd century. His nickname Maurus suggests that Terentianus came from the Roman province of Mauritania .

As far as this can be reconstructed, Terentianus' main work was the four-book treatise De litteris, de syllabis, de metris ("About letters, syllables and meter measures"), the sections of which are written in the meter measures discussed . In this didactic poem , which has only been handed down incompletely , the author refers to Septimius Serenus and Alfius Avitus as members of a “new school of poets” ( poetae neoterici or novelli ). These were active around the reign of Emperor Hadrian (117-138), and since Terentianus' portrayal suggests his approximate contemporaneity, his own lifetime was dated to the second half of the century. From the aforementioned treatise come the words on the basis of which Terentianus Maurus is cited (mostly incorrectly) to this day, namely: Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli (books are received differently depending on the reader's interpretation). Only the second half of the sentence is used as a quotation, Habent sua fata libelli , which is also interpreted in the sense of “books have their own fates”.

The text appeared in print for the first time in 1497. The reprint made by the Parisian printer Simon de Colines in 1531 is set in an Antiqua type called “Terentianus” , which is often incorrectly ascribed to Claude Garamond .

The important German philologist and pioneer of the text-critical method Karl Lachmann obtained an edition of the works of Terentianus Maurus in 1836.

Due to his first description by Terentianus Maurus, a meter is named after him, the so-called Terentianeus by Dag Norberg , an elf silver that consists of "a hemiepes with an obligatory spondeic first and dactylic second foot and an adonius ".

literature

  • Klaus Sallmann : Terentianus Maurus. In: Klaus Sallmann (ed.): The literature of upheaval. From Roman to Christian literature, AD 117 to 284 (= Handbook of Ancient Latin Literature , Volume 4). CH Beck, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-406-39020-X , pp. 618-622

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Paul Klopsch: Introduction to the Middle Latin verse . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1972, p. 98.
personal data
SURNAME Terentianus Maurus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Terentianus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman grammarian
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century or 2nd century
DATE OF DEATH 2nd century or 3rd century