Aulus Gellius

Long a source for quotations, fragments, and factoids, the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius offers hundreds of brief but vivid glimpses of Roman intellectual life. In this book Joseph Howley demonstrates how the work may be read as a literary text in its own right, and discusses the rich evidence it provides for the ancient history of reading, thought, and intellectual culture. He argues that Gellius is in close conversation with predecessors both Greek and Latin, such as Plutarch and Pliny the Elder, and also offers new ways of making sense of the text's 'miscellaneous' qualities, like its disorder and its table of contents. Dealing with topics ranging from the framing of literary quotations to the treatment of contemporary celebrities who appear in its pages, this book offers a new way to learn from the Noctes about the world of Roman reading and thought.

Aulus Gellius originated the modern use of 'classical' and 'humanities'. His Attic Nights, so named because they began as the intellectual pastime of winter evenings spent in a villa outside Athens, are a mine of information on many aspects of antiquity and a repository of much early Latin literature which would otherwise be lost; he took a particular interest in questions of grammar and literary style. The whole work is interspersed with interesting personal observations and vignettes of second-century life that throw light on the Antonine world. In this, the most comprehensive study of Gellius in any language, Dr Holford-Strevens examines his life, his circle of acquaintances, his style, his reading, his scholarly interests, and his literary parentage, paying due attention to the text, sense, and content of individual passages, and to the use made of him by later writers in antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and more recent times. It covers many subject areas such as language, literature, history, law, rhetoric, medicine; light is shed on a wide range of problems in Greek as well as Latin authors, either in the main text or in the succinct but wide-ranging footnotes. In this revised edition every statement has been reconsidered and account taken of recent work by the author and by others; an appendix has been added on the relation between the literary trends of Latin (the so-called archaizing movement) and Greek (Atticism) in the second century AD, and more space has been given to Gellius' attitudes towards women, as well as to recurrent themes such as punishment and embassies. The opportunity has been taken to correct or excise errors, but otherwise nothing has been removed unless superseded by more recent publications.

In this strikingly original and playful work, Erik Gunderson examines questions of reading the past—an enterprise extending from antiquity to the present day. This esoteric and original study focuses on the equally singular work of Aulus Gellius—a Roman author and grammarian (ca. 120-180 A.D.), possibly of African origin. Gellius’s only work, the twenty-volume Noctes Atticae,is an exploding, sometimes seemingly random text-cum-diary in which Gellius jotted down everything of interest he heard in conversation or read in contemporary books. Comprising notes on Roman and classical grammar, geometry, philosophy, and history, it is a one-work overview of Latin scholarship, thought, and intellectual culture, a combination condensed library and cabinet of curiosities. Gunderson tackles Gellius with exuberance, placing him in the larger culture of antiquarian literature. Purposely echoing Gellius’s own swooping word-play and digressions, he explores the techniques by which knowledge was produced and consumed in Gellius’s day, as well as in our own time. The resulting book is as much pure creative fun as it is a major work of scholarship informed by the theories of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, and Jacques Derrida.

Composed during the nights of an Attic winter, the sole surviving work of Aulus Gellius, the second century Latin author and grammarian, is an intriguing compendium of notes covering philosophy, history, biography and questions of grammar. ‘Attic Nights’ offers a valuable insight into the works of lost authors and the manners and occupations of Roman society. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both English translations and the original Latin texts. This comprehensive eBook presents Aulus Gellius’ complete extant works, with relevant illustrations, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1) * Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Aulus Gellius’ life and works * Features the complete extant works of Aulus Gellius, in both English translation and the original Latin * Concise introductions to the ‘Attic Nights’ * Includes John C. Rolfe’s translation previously appearing in the Loeb Classical Library edition of Aulus * Excellent formatting of the texts * Easily locate the sections you want to read with individual contents tables * Provides a special dual English and Latin text, allowing readers to compare the sections paragraph by paragraph – ideal for students * Features a bonus biography – discover Aulus Gellius’ ancient world * Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to explore our range of Ancient Classics titles or buy the entire series as a Super Set CONTENTS: The Translation THE ATTIC NIGHTS The Latin Text CONTENTS OF THE LATIN TEXT The Dual Text DUAL LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT The Biography LIFE OF AULUS GELLIUS by G. H. Nall Please visit www.delphiclassics.com to browse through our range of exciting titles

This is the first collection of essays in any language on Aulus Gellius; its contributors, both established and younger scholars, include Gellian experts looking out with specialists in other fields looking in; they combine traditional and new approaches. Subjects range from the bilingual culture in which Gellius wrote, through his stylistic judgements, his skills in etymology and narrative, his relation to the antiquarian tradition, the generic expectations of miscellany, his claim to educate his readers, the theory of 'Gellian humanism', and his attitude towards intellectuals, to his reception in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and the Scientific Revolution.

Noting previously unrecognised allusions to literary works and contemporary events, this book presents an original portrait of the miscellanist Aulus Gellius ("Attic Nights") as a satirical writer and a Roman intellectual working within the cultural milieu of Antonine Rome.