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W.388, Pseudo-Aurelius Victor (?), De Viris Illustribus; Cornelius Nepos, De Excellentibus Ducibus Exterarum Gentium; Plutarch, Regum et Imperatorum Apophthegmata

Abstract

Written in Italy in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, this manuscript contains works by Pseudo-Aurelius Victor (?), Cornelius Nepos, and Plutarch. The first text, De Viris Illustribus, concerns the history of the Roman Empire and dates to the fourth century CE. It gives short, concise biographies of important men from Rome's long history. It is one of many such texts that fall within the genre of Roman exemplary literature, the most famous of which is Suetonius' early second-century CE work "De Vita Caesarum" or “The Lives of the Caesars.” In the manuscript tradition, the author of De Viris Illustribus has been given as both Pliny Secundus Veronesis, otherwise known as Pliny the Younger, who was writing in the late first century CE, or as Aurelius Victor, a fourth-century CE historian. The Walters text adopts the former, naming the author as "Pliny Veronesis." Most scholars have dismissed both Pliny and Aurelius Victor as potential authors and instead prefer to say he was a late antique scholarly commentator working in the fourth or early fifth century CE. The second text, De excellentibus ducibus exterarum gentium, is written by the first-century BCE Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos. He was a prolific author, as attested by contemporary authors such as Cicero and Catullus. We now only have preserved parts of his book De Viris Illustribus, from which De excellentibus comes. The text was composed of biographies grouped into pairs, the first of which was usually reserved for those of Greek or foreign origin, and the second for Romans. It has been determined that categories such as generals, historians, kings, and poets organized a number of the pairs. The only extant pairing is that of great commanders and generals, which is preserved in the Walters manuscript. The biographies of Atticus, a prominent first-century BCE Roman statesman, and Cato the Elder, a late third- to early second-century BCE Roman senator and historian, are also preserved, but not in the Walters manuscript. For centuries it was believed that Aemilius Probus, a late fourth- to early fifth-century CE grammarian, was the author of Nepos' text because of an epigram that names Probus and appears in a number of versions of the text (including that of the Walters). This error was corrected beginning in the sixteenth century. The third text is the Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata of Plutarch, a first-century CE Greek writer. It is one part of a much larger group of dialogues, essays, and recorded speeches collectively known as the Moralia. The Regum text is organized into two parts with the sayings of Greek and foreign kings and commanders coming first followed by those of Roman origin. Francesco Filelfo first translated the Greek text into Latin sometime during the life of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan (1392-1447), to whom the translation is dedicated.

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