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The Worlds of Aulus Gellius

Online ISBN:
9780191718403
Print ISBN:
9780199264827
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Worlds of Aulus Gellius

Leofranc Holford-Strevens (ed.),
Leofranc Holford-Strevens
(ed.)
Consultant Scholar-Editor, Oxford University Press
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Amiel Vardi (ed.)
Amiel Vardi
(ed.)
Senior Lecturer in Classics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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Published online:
1 September 2007
Published in print:
23 December 2004
Online ISBN:
9780191718403
Print ISBN:
9780199264827
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

This collection of essays on the 2nd-century Roman miscellanist Aulus Gellius, the author of the Attic Nights, is the first multi-author study of his work in any language. It brings together the work of established and younger scholars with different specialities and approaches in order to study various facets both of Gellius' intellectual outlook and that of his later readers. The book is dived into three parts. Part I, ‘Contexts and Achievements’, examines the use of Greek by Gellius and other Romans, in particular the leading orator Fronto and Apuleius; the conflicting criteria of Fronto and Gellius for lexical choice outside the standard Latin vocabulary; Gellius' linguistic skills in etymology; his literary skills in narrative; and his relation to Roman antiquarianism. Part II, ‘Ideologies’, considers Gellius' work against the expectations aroused by writing a miscellany and his claim to offer moral education — which proves acceptable once stated in less than absolutist terms — and compares his attitude to intellectuals with that of Apuleius. Part III, ‘Reception’, reviews various aspects of Gellius' literary afterlife down to the 17th century, ranging from medieval florilegia and a baroque-era song, through false ascriptions and lost manuscripts, to his presence in Montaigne and other Renaissance French authors, humanism, and the Scientific Revolution.

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