AuthorsWhat follows are brief descriptions of the authors whose works are translated in this website.
Not much is known of Hyginus, the author of Fabulae. He is not thought to be the freedman of Augustus named Hyginus, nor is he thought to be Hyginus Gromaticus (Hornblower, 735).
Hyginus wrote the Genealogiae which is a relatively small encyclopedia of mythology. Some estimate that it was written in the 2nd century A.D. Christian Fordyce states: "The work was abbreviated, perhaps for school use, and has suffered later accretions; its absurdities are partly due to the compiler's ignorance of Greek. The usual title Fabulae is due to the editio princeps of Micyllus, now the only authority for the text; the manuscript which he used is lost" (Hornblower, 735).
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was born in 65 B.C.in Venusia (Venosa). He died in 8 B.C. His father was a freedman and a public auctioneer. Horace, however, did receive an upper-class education, studying in both Rome and Athens. Matthew Bunson states that "Horace described himself as short and fat, with a stomach so large that even the emperor remarked upon it" (198).
Horace joined the army of Brutus, which was defeated, and Horace returned to Rome and was pardoned. In Rome he wrote his first poems. This caught the attention of Virgil and Varius Rufus, who introduced Horace to Maecenas. In 38 B.C., Horace was welcomed into Maecenas' circle of writers and poets.
From Maecenas he got a villa in the Sabine hills (he refers to this villa in some of his works) and was secure enough that he was able to refuse Augustus' offer for him to join his personal staff.
Horace wrote the Epodes, Satires, Odes (Carmina), Epistles and Ars Poetica.
The Odes (103 poems) are noted for the absence of "extreme emotion" and the emphasis on "calm and cheerful enjoyment of the moment" (Hornblower, 725).
In Maecenas' will, it was written that he hoped the emperor would be "as mindful of Horace as of himself" (Bunson, 198).
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) was born in 43 B.C. at Sulmo and died in either 17 or 18 A.D.
He studied rhetoric and law in Rome and Athens. After holding some small judicial posts, Ovid devoted himself to poetry. Ovid wrote the Amores, Ars Amatoria, Epistulae Heroides, Remedia armoris, Metamorphoses, Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto, Fasti, Ibis, and, debatedly, the Halieutica and Nux.
Simon Hornblower writes that "erotic elegy before Ovid had featured a disjunction in the first-person voice between a very knowing poet and a very unkowing lover. Ovid closes this gap [in the Amores], and achieves a closer fit between literary and erotic conventions, by featuring a protagonist who loves as knowingly as he writes" (1084).
The Heroides is a collection of letters written by impassioned mythological heroines to their husbands or lovers. In some cases, the lover responds (e.g., Paris, Leander, Acontius). Harold Isbell states that, in the Heroides, "Ovid is not so much telling a story as he is fleshing out the bare bones of another author's minor character to reveal a depth and profundity of personality not inconsistent with the character we already know from other reading" (viii). Apparently, Ovid's Heroides were well received when they were published.
In 8 A.D., when Ovid was in the height of his popularity, Augustus exiled him to Tomi. The reasons for this banishment are debated, and Ovid offers only a brief explanation. Ovid states that he was banished because of a carmen (poem, presumably the Ars Amatoria), and an error (mistake) (Hornblower, 1084).
Ovid continued to write in exile, though he often beseeched Augustus, and later Tiberius, to let him return to Rome.
Sextus Propertius was born some time between 54 and 47 B.C. in Asisium. His family was well-off and, even though his father died when Propertius was very young, Propertius did not have to earn a living (Hornblower, 1258).
Propertius is known as a love poet, and many of his poems are addressed to a woman he calls Cynthia. It is thought that he was a member of Maecenas' literary circle.
In Book 3 of his book of elegies, Propertius claims to be the Roman Callimachus (a famous Greek poet and scholar). Whether or not the general Roman public agreed with Propertius' favorable description of himself is debatable. However, Ovid speaks well of Propertius, and Propertius did aquire a significant amount of popularity during his lifetime (Bunson, 350).
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 5-65 A.D.) was born in Cordova, Spain, and was the son of Seneca the Elder.
Seneca studied philosophy (he subscribed to the Stoic philosophy) and rhetoric in Rome as he tried to begin a senatorial career. Seneca became quaestor in 32 A.D., and Gaius Caligula, jealously called Seneca a "textbook orator" and "sand without lime" (Bunson, 382).
Emperor Claudius exiled him to Corsica in 41 A.D., stating that Seneca had committed adultery with a sister of Gaius named Iulia Livilla (Hornblower, 96).
In 49 A.D., Agrippina the Younger recalled Seneca to Rome to tutor her son, Nero. Seneca returned and, along with Praetorian Prefect Burrus, attempted to stabilize Nero's empire. As Nero aged, Seneca and Burrus' influence on Nero declined and, in 62 A.D., Seneca retired. In 65 A.D., Nero accused Seneca of being part of the failed Pisonian Conspiracy and Seneca was forced to take his own life.
Seneca wrote a very eclectic variety of works, including the Dialogi, de clementia, de beneficiis, Naturales Quaestiones, Epistulae morales, Satire, and Tragedies (which included Troades).
Leighton Reynolds, et al., states that the the Tragedies have "been called 'rhetorical': certainly their most conspicuous feature is their passionate rhetoric of the leading characters, displayed in both terse stichomythia and extended harangues. They have been claimed as Stoic, since the dominant theme is the triumph of evil released by uncontrolled passion" (Hornblower, 97).
Publius Vergilius Maro lived between 70 B.C. and 19 B.C. He was born in Andes and studied oratory, philosophy, mathematics, and medicine in Cremona, Milan, and Rome (Bunson, 450).
He went to Rome and, through his Bucolics, Virgil gained the notice of Maecenas. Virgil joined Maecenas' literary circle and quickly gained famous in Rome as a literary figure.
In 29 B.C. he read his Georgics aloud to Augustus and, at the request of Augustus, wrote the Aeneid. Matthew Bunson states that Virgil was a "gentle poet, popular and graceful in his style" (451).
The Aeneid, Virgil's epic masterpiece, follows the Trojan prince Aeneas after the fall of Troy. Bunson states that the Aeneid "did justice to the theme of Rome's foundation while embracing the future imperial era with enthusiasm" (451).