Lucius Annaeus Cornutus
Encyclopedia
Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, , a Stoic
STOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...

 philosopher, flourished in the reign of Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

 (c. 60 AD), when his house in Rome was a school of philosophy.

Life

He was a native of Leptis Magna
Leptis Magna
Leptis Magna also known as Lectis Magna , also called Lpqy, Neapolis, Lebida or Lebda to modern-day residents of Libya, was a prominent city of the Roman Empire. Its ruins are located in Khoms, Libya, east of Tripoli, on the coast where the Wadi Lebda meets the sea...

 in Libya
Libya
Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

, but resided for the most part in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. He is best known as the teacher and friend of Persius, whose fifth satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 is addressed to him, as well as other distinguished students, such as Claudius Agathemerus
Claudius Agathemerus
Claudius Agathemerus was an ancient Greek physician who lived in the 1st century. He was born in the Lacedaemon, and was a pupil of the philosopher Cornutus, in whose house he became acquainted with the poet Persius about 50 AD...

. "Through Cornutus Persius was introduced to Annaeus, as well as to Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...

, who was of his own age, and also a disciple of Cornutus". At Persius' 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
Caesius Bassus
Caesius Bassus was a Roman lyric poet, who lived in the reign of Nero.He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works be edited . He is said to have lost his life in the eruption of Vesuvius . He had a great reputation as a poet; Quintilian Caesius...

 to edit, at the special request of the latter.

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:
Auriculas asini Mida rex habet


but Cornutus altered it to:
Auriculas asini quis non habet?
Who has not an ass's ears?"


in order that it might not be supposed that it was meant to apply to Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

."

Annaeus Cornutus was banished by Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

 nevertheless—in 66 or 68 CE—for having indirectly disparaged the emperor's projected history of the Romans in heroic verse, after which time nothing more is heard of him.

Writings

He was the author of various rhetorical works in both Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, such as De figuris sententiarum. Excerpts from his treatise De enuntiatione vel orthographia are preserved in Cassiodorus
Cassiodorus
Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator , commonly known as Cassiodorus, was a Roman statesman and writer, serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. Senator was part of his surname, not his rank.- Life :Cassiodorus was born at Scylletium, near Catanzaro in...

. A commentary on Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 is frequently quoted by Servius, but tragedies mentioned by Suetonius have not survived.

Cornutus wrote a work on Rhetoric
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

, and a commentary on the Categories of Aristotle, (πρὸς Ἁθηνόδωρον καὶ Ἀριστοτέλην) whose philosophy he attacked along with his fellow Stoic Athenodorus. He also wrote a work called On Properties .

Compendium of Greek Theology

His one major survivor, the philosophical treatise, Theologiae Graecae compendium ("Compendium of Greek Theology"; the Greek title being uncertain) is a manual of "popular mythology as expounded in the etymological and symbolical interpretations of the Stoics". This early example of a Roman educational treatise, provided an account of Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...

 on the bases of highly elaborated etymological
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, 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 during...

 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. The result, to modern eyes, is often bizarre, with many forced etymologies, as can be seen from the opening paragraph, where Cornutus describes Heaven (Ouranos):
The Heaven [ouranos], 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" [ouros anô] of all things and "marks of the bounds" [horizôn] of nature. Some say, however, that it is called Heaven [ouranos] from its "looking after" [ôrein] or "tending to" [ôreuein] things, that is, from its guarding them, from which also "doorkeeper" [thyrôros] and "watching carefully" [polyôrein] are named. Still others derive its etymology from its "being seen above" [horasthai anô]. Together with everything it encompasses, it is called the "world" [kosmos] from its being "so beautifully ordered" [diakekosmêsthai]

The book continues in a similar vein, proceeding from such gods as Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...

, Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...

, Cronus
Cronus
In Greek mythology, Cronus or Kronos was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titans, divine descendants of Gaia, the earth, and Uranus, the sky...

, and Poseidon
Poseidon
Poseidon was the god of the sea, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of the earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon...

, to the Furies, Fates
Moirae
The Moirae, Moerae or Moirai , in Greek mythology, were the white-robed incarnations of destiny . Their number became fixed at three...

, Muses, and Graces
Grâces
Grâces is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Grâces are called gracieux.-External links:*...

. 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 who dwells in Heaven whose substance is fiery. Zeus is the power that pervades everything, and who assigns Fate to each person. The gods have sent us Reason (Logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

), which does not work evil, but which is part of the divine Reason of the universe:
"Ocean
Oceanus
Oceanus ; , Ōkeanós) was a pseudo-geographical feature in classical antiquity, believed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the world-ocean, an enormous river encircling the world....

" is the Logos that "glides swiftly" and changes continuously, whereas Tethys
Tethys (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Tethys , daughter of Uranus and Gaia was an archaic Titaness and aquatic sea goddess, invoked in classical Greek poetry but not venerated in cult. Tethys was both sister and wife of Oceanus...

 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.

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
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...

 period. The so-called Disticha Cornuti belong to the Late Middle Ages
Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages was the period of European history generally comprising the 14th to the 16th century . The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern era ....



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.

External links

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