Aufidius Bassus
Aufidius Bassus was a renowned Roman historian[1] and orator who lived in the reign of Augustus and Tiberius.[2]
Bassus was a man much admired in Rome[3] for his eloquence.[4] He drew up an account of the Roman wars in Germany.[2] Uncertainty in his health perhaps prevented him from holding a public office.[4] He suddenly died of illness leaving his works unfinished.[3]
His work, which probably began with the
Roman civil wars or the death of Julius Caesar up to the end of the Sejanus, or perhaps Tiberius,[1][3] was continued in thirty-one books by Pliny the Elder.[2][5] Pliny the Elder carried it down at least as far as the end of Nero's reign. Bassus' other historical work was a Bellum Germanicum, which was published before his Histories.[6]
Seneca the Elder speaks highly of Bassus as a historian; however, the fragments preserved in that writer's Suasoriae (vi. 23) relating to the death of Cicero are characterized by an affected style.[6]
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-135-86753-9. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-130-29074-5. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-441-17991-3. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-199-54556-8. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ISBN 978-1-136-78386-9. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ a b One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bassus, Aufidius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 498. Endnotes:
- Pliny, Nat. Hist., praefatio, 20
- Dialogus de Oratoribus, 23
- Quintilian, Instit x. I. 103.
External links
- Seneca (1917). "XXX On Conquering the Conqueror". Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. Vol. I. Translated by Gummere, Richard M. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann Ltd. pp. 210-221. Retrieved 9 August 2020 – via Internet Archive.
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