Sextus Pompeius Festus was a
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
ian, who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo (
NarbonneNarbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon région. It lies from Paris in the Aude département, of which it is a sous-préfecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
) in
GaulGaul is a historical name used in the context of the Roman Empire in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day France and Belgium, but also sometimes including the Po Valley, western Switzerland, and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River...
.
He made an epitome in 20 volumes of the encyclopedic treatise in many volumes
De verborum significatu, of
Verrius FlaccusMarcus Verrius Flaccus , was a Roman grammarian and teacher, flourished under Augustus and Tiberius.-Life:He was a freedman, and his manumitter has been identified with Verrius Flaccus, an authority on pontifical law; but for chronological reasons the name of Veranius Flaccus, a writer on augury,...
, a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the reign of Augustus. Festus gives the
etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages, and texts about the languages, to gather knowledge about how words were used at earlier stages, and...
as well as the meaning of many words; and his work throws considerable light on the language, mythology and antiquities of ancient
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
.
Sextus Pompeius Festus was a
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of logical and structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology,...
ian, who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo (
NarbonneNarbonne is a commune in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon région. It lies from Paris in the Aude département, of which it is a sous-préfecture. Once a prosperous port, it is now located about from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea...
) in
GaulGaul is a historical name used in the context of the Roman Empire in references to the region of Western Europe approximating present day France and Belgium, but also sometimes including the Po Valley, western Switzerland, and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River...
.
He made an epitome in 20 volumes of the encyclopedic treatise in many volumes
De verborum significatu, of
Verrius FlaccusMarcus Verrius Flaccus , was a Roman grammarian and teacher, flourished under Augustus and Tiberius.-Life:He was a freedman, and his manumitter has been identified with Verrius Flaccus, an authority on pontifical law; but for chronological reasons the name of Veranius Flaccus, a writer on augury,...
, a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the reign of Augustus. Festus gives the
etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages, and texts about the languages, to gather knowledge about how words were used at earlier stages, and...
as well as the meaning of many words; and his work throws considerable light on the language, mythology and antiquities of ancient
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
. He made a few alterations, and inserted some critical remarks of his own. He also omitted such ancient
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
words as had long been obsolete; these he apparently discussed in a separate work now lost, entitled
Priscorum verborum cum exemplis. Even incomplete, Festus' lexicon reflects at second hand the enormous intellectual effort that had been made in the Augustan Age to put together information on the traditions of the Roman world, which was already in a state of flux and change.
Of Flaccus's work only a few fragments remain, of Festus's
epitome only one damaged, fragmentary manuscript. The rest is further abridged in a summary made at the close of the 8th century, by Paul the Deacon.
The sole surviving Festus manuscript, the
Codex Farnesianus at
NaplesNaples in Italy, is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old...
, is an 11th century manuscript. When it was rediscovered during the early
RenaissanceThe Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe...
half of it was already missing, so that it only contains the alphabetized entries M-V, and that not in a perfect condition. It has been scorched by fire and disassembled.
Collating these fragmentary abridgements, and republishing them with translations, is a project being coordinated at
University College LondonUniversity College London is a British university institution and a constituent college of the University of London, based primarily in Bloomsbury, London...
with several objectives in view: to make this mass of information available to researchers in a usable form; to stimulate debate on Festus and on the Augustan antiquarian tradition on which he drew, and generally to enrich and renew studies on Roman life, on which Festus provides such essential information.
Festus' modern editors sum up his importance:
- "The text, even in its present mutilated state, is an important source for scholars of Roman history. It is a treasury of historical, grammatical, legal and antiquarian learning, providing sometimes unique evidence for the culture, language, political, social and religious institutions, deities, laws, lost monuments, and topographical traditions of ancient Italy."
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