Excerpt from Nonius Marcellus' Dictionary of Republican Latin Of the three large Latin Dictionaries or Encyclopaedias which have been transmitted from ancient to modern times, (1) Festus' Epitome of Verrius Flaccus 'De Verborum Significatu, ' (2) Nonius Marcellus 'de Compendiosa Doctrina, ' (3) the 'Etymologiae' of Isidore, the second excels in its wealth of quotations from the literature of the Republic. Most of what has been preserved of the lost Republican writers, such as Accius the tragedian, Lucilius the satirist, Sisenna the historian, we owe to the quotations with which Nonius has illustrated the words of his Dictionary. Of Nonius himself little is known. From various indications it has been inferred that he lived in the fourth or fifth century A.D., and was a dignitary in the small town of Thubursicum in North Africa. He published a volume of letters 'On the Neglect of Study, ' from which he quotes a pompous sentence in illustration of the word meridies (page 45 of Mercier's edition). Some of his modern critics accuse him of an amount of ignorance that is hardly conceivable. Without going so far, we may safely regard him as a man of very limited learning, a compiler rather than a researcher. His dictionary can hardly have belonged to anything but the 'scissors and paste' class. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Fragmentary texts play a central role in Classics. Their study poses a stimulating challenge to scholars and readers, while its methods and principles, far from being rigidly immutable, invite constant reflection on its methods, approaches, and goals. By focusing on some of the most relevant issues that fragmentologists have to face, this book contributes to the ongoing and lively debate on the study of fragmentary texts. This volume contains an extensive theoretical introduction on the study of textual fragments, followed by eight essays on a wide variety of topics relevant to the study of fragmentary texts across literary genres. The chapters range from archaic Greek epics (the Hesiodic corpus) to late-antique grammarian Nonius Marcellus as a source of fragments of Republican literature. All contributions share a nuanced, critical attention to the main methodological implications of the study of fragmentary texts and mutually contribute to highlighting the field’s common specificities and limitations, both in theory and in editorial practice. The book offers a representative spectrum of fragmentological issues, providing all readers with an interest in Classics with an up-to-date, methodologically aware approach to the field.