Lucius Annaeus Cornutus

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Template:Short description Lucius Annaeus Cornutus (Template:Langx) was a Stoic philosopher who flourished in the reign of Nero[1] (c. 60 AD), when his house in Rome was a school of philosophy.

Life

Cornutus was a native of Leptis Magna in Libya, but resided for the most part in Rome.[1] He is best known as the teacher and friend of Persius,[1] whose fifth satire is addressed to him, as well as other distinguished students, such as Claudius Agathemerus.[2] "Through Cornutus Persius was introduced to Annaeus, as well as to Lucan, who was of his own age, and also a disciple of Cornutus".[3] At Persius's death, Cornutus returned to Persius' sisters a bequest made to him, but accepted Persius' library of some 700 scrolls. He revised the deceased poet's satires for publication, but handed them over to Caesius Bassus to edit, at the special request of the latter.[1]

Among Persius's satires were lines that, as Suetonius records, "even lashed Nero himself, who was then the reigning prince. The verse ran as follows:

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(King Midas has an ass's ears)

but Cornutus altered it to:

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Who has not an ass's ears?

in order that it might not be supposed that it was meant to apply to Nero."[3]

Annaeus Cornutus was banished by Nero neverthelessTemplate:Sndin 66 or 68 ADTemplate:Sndfor having indirectly disparaged the emperor's projected history of the Romans in heroic verse,[4] after which time nothing more is heard of him.[1]

Writings

He was the author of various rhetorical works in both Greek and Latin, such as Script error: No such module "Lang"..[1] Excerpts from his treatise Script error: No such module "Lang". are preserved in Cassiodorus. A commentary on Virgil is frequently quoted by Servius, but tragedies mentioned by Suetonius have not survived.

Cornutus wrote a work on Rhetoric,[5] and a commentary on the Categories of Aristotle, (Script error: No such module "Lang".)[6] whose philosophy he attacked along with his fellow Stoic Athenodorus.[7] He also wrote a work called On Properties (Script error: No such module "Lang".).[8]

Compendium of Greek Theology

His one major surviving work, the philosophical treatise, Script error: No such module "Lang". ("Compendium of Greek Theology")[9] is a manual of "popular mythology as expounded in the etymological and symbolical interpretations of the Stoics".[1][10] This early example of a Roman educational treatise, provided an account of Greek mythology on the bases of highly elaborated etymological readings. Cornutus sought to recover the earliest beliefs that primitive people had about the world by examining the various names and titles of the gods.[11] The result, to modern eyes, is often bizarre, with many forced etymologies, as can be seen from the opening paragraph, where Cornutus describes Heaven (Script error: No such module "Lang".):

The Heaven [Script error: No such module "Lang".], my boy, encompasses round about the earth and the sea and everything both on the earth and the sea. On this account it has acquired its appellation, since it is an "upper limit" [Script error: No such module "Lang".] of all things and "marks of the bounds" [Script error: No such module "Lang".] of nature. Some say, however, that it is called Heaven [Script error: No such module "Lang".] from its "looking after" [Script error: No such module "Lang".] or "tending to" [Script error: No such module "Lang".] things, that is, from its guarding them, from which also "doorkeeper" [Script error: No such module "Lang".] and "watching carefully" [Script error: No such module "Lang".] are named. Still others derive its etymology from its "being seen above" [Script error: No such module "Lang".]. Together with everything it encompasses, it is called the "world" [Script error: No such module "Lang".] from its being "so beautifully ordered" [Script error: No such module "Lang".][12]

The book continues in a similar vein, proceeding from such gods as Zeus, Hera, Cronus, and Poseidon, to the Furies, Fates, Muses, and Graces. The work is pervaded throughout with a strong undercurrent of Stoic Physics.

We are told that the world has a soul that preserves it called Zeus[13] who dwells in Heaven whose substance is fiery.[14] Zeus is the power that pervades everything,[15] and who assigns Fate to each person.[16] The gods have sent us Reason (Script error: No such module "Lang".),[17] which does not work evil,[18] but which is part of the divine Reason of the universe:

"Ocean" is the Script error: No such module "Lang". that "glides swiftly" and changes continuously, whereas Tethys is the stability of the qualities. For from their blending or mixing come about those things that exist; and nothing would exist if either one unmixed gained the upper hand over the other.[19]

Spurious works

Scholia to Persius are also attributed to Annaeus Cornutus; the latter, however, are of much later date, and are assigned by Jahn to the Carolingian period.[1][20] The so-called Disticha Cornuti belong to the Late Middle Ages.[1]

In 1891, Johannes Graeven proposed that an anonymous rhetorical treatise (the Anonymous Seguerianus) written in the 3rd century was written by a Cornutus. This attribution has not been generally accepted and, in any case, would refer to a later Cornutus.[21]

Editions

Notes

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Further reading

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  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Template:Cite EB1911
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ a b Suetonius, Life of Persius.
  4. ↑ Dio Cassius Roman History, lxii 29.
  5. ↑ Porphyry, in Cat. 86.21–22
  6. ↑ Simplicius, in Cat. 62.25–26
  7. ↑ Barnes, J. Aristotle and Stoic Logic, in Ierodiakonou, K., Topics in Stoic Philosophy. p. 59. Oxford University Press. (2001), ISBN 9780199248803.
  8. ↑ Sedley, D., Stoic Metaphysics at Rome, in Metaphysics, Soul, and Ethics in Ancient Thought. p. 171. Oxford University Press. (2005), ISBN 9780199261307.
  9. ↑ A new edition is in preparation: Cornutus: A Cursory Examination of the Traditions of Greek Theology (Script error: No such module "Lang".), with text, translation, and commentary, edited by David Armstrong, Pamela Gordon, Loveday Alexander and L. Michael White.
  10. ↑ John Edwin SandysTemplate:Full citation needed
  11. ↑ Long, A. A., Stoic Studies. p. 71. University of California Press. (1996), ISBN 9780521482639.
  12. ↑ Cornutus, 1.1, from Armstrong, White, (translators), Cornutus: A Cursory Examination of the Traditions of Greek Theology. Draft version. (2007).
  13. ↑ Cornutus, 2.
  14. ↑ Cornutus, 1.2.
  15. ↑ Cornutus, 11.
  16. ↑ Cornutus, 13.1.
  17. ↑ Cornutus, 16.1.
  18. ↑ Cornutus, 16.2.
  19. ↑ Cornutus, 6.4.
  20. ↑ For a recent study of these scholia, some of which are now thought to be ancient, see J. E. G. Zetzel, Marginal Scholarship and Textual Deviance. The Commentum Cornuti and the Early Scholia on Persius, London, 2005.
  21. ↑ Anonyme de Séguier. Art du discours politique, review by Malcolm Heath in Bryn Mawr Classical Review
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