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Tanusius Geminus

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Tanusius Geminus was an ancient Roman historian from the 1st century BCE.[1][2][3] Very little is known of him and none of his work survives.[4] The German classical scholar Friedrich Münzer believed he was a senator.[5][6][7] This perspective has been criticized by American classicist Erich Gruen for lacking supporting evidence.[8]

It is known that he wrote a historical treatise describing the Cataline Conspiracy. The historian Suetonius utilized Geminus as a source on the Cataline Conspiracy in his work The Twelve Caesars.[9][10][11] Geminus is thought to have been politically hostile to Julius Caesar.[12][13][14] It has been argued that because Suetonius's work is critical of Caesar, this implies his sources, including Geminus, were also opposed to Caesar.[15] The historian Plutarch also utilized Geminus as a source for one of Cato the Younger's speeches.[16][17] According to Plutarch, Geminus recorded that Cato considered the campaigns of Caesar in Germany to be unjustified. Plutarch claims that Geminus wrote that the Romans should turn Caesar over to the Germans following these battles.[18][19][20] Geminus may also have been a source for Appian.[21] It has been argued that Plutarch and Appian describe the event in a such a similar manner that they likely share a common source, potentially Geminus.[22][23]

Seneca referred to him in his epistles.[24][25] He wrote:[26][27]

There are books which contain very few lines, admirable and useful in spite of their size; and there are also the Annals of Tanusius – you know how bulky the book is, and what men say of it. This is the case with the long life of certain persons, – a state which resembles the Annals of Tanusius!

It has been argued that the poet Catullus may also have referenced him in his writings. He described an annalist's works as cacata charta, which can be translated as "toilet paper." Although Catullus calls this writer Volusius, the historian George Lincoln Hendrickson argues that this may have been a snide reference to Geminus due to the subpar quality associated with both author's works.[28] British scholar D. R. Shackleton Bailey argues that "it can hardly be doubted" that the "state which resembles the Annals of Tanusius" described in Seneca alludes to the "cacata" ("shit") state of the writings of Tanusius described by Catullus.[29] Although, the American scholar Elmer Truesdell Merrill is critical of this theory, arguing that is has no supporting evidence beyond the remark from Seneca and conjecture.[30]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Fordyce, Christian James; Spawforth, Antony (2016). "Tanusius Geminus". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Classics. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.6219. ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5.
  2. ^ Pauly-Wissowa (1992). Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft: Erste Reihe.Band XXIII, 1: Priscilla–Psalychiadai (1957) (in German). J.B. Metzler. p. 2231. ISBN 978-3-476-01092-6.
  3. ^ Peter, Hermann Wilhelm Gottlob (1870–1906). Veterum historicorum Romanorum relliquiae; disposuit, recensuit, praefatus est Hermannus Peter (in Latin). Robarts - University of Toronto. Lipsiae In aedibus B.G. Teubneri. p. 104.
  4. ^ Levene, D. S. (2007). "Roman Historiography in the Late Republic". A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography. pp. 255–268. doi:10.1002/9781405185110.ch23. ISBN 978-1-4051-0216-2.
  5. ^ Stevenson, Tom (2014). Julius Caesar and the Transformation of the Roman Republic. Routledge. p. 6. ISBN 978-1-317-59754-4.
  6. ^ Rawson, Elizabeth (November 1978). "Caesar, Etruria and the Disciplina Etrusca". Journal of Roman Studies. 68: 132–152. doi:10.2307/299632. JSTOR 299632. S2CID 163115866.
  7. ^ Morrell, Kit (November 2015). "Cato, Caesar, and the Germani". Antichthon. 49: 73–93. doi:10.1017/ann.2015.6. S2CID 146445146.
  8. ^ Gruen, Erich S. (1974). "Review of New Men in the Roman Senate, 139 B.C.-14 A.D.". The Classical Journal. 69 (3): 251–253. JSTOR 3295928.
  9. ^ Pitt, Edith Seaton (1943). The political relationship between Caesar and Cicero to the conclusion of the Civil War (Thesis). OCLC 903497893.[page needed]
  10. ^ Marshall, Bruce A. (1974). "Cicero and Sallust on Crassus and Catiline". Latomus. 33 (4): 804–813. JSTOR 41529134.
  11. ^ Mellor, Ronald (2012). The Historians of Ancient Rome. Routledge. p. 350. ISBN 978-1-136-75278-0.
  12. ^ Syme, Ronald (2023). Sallust. University of California Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-520-92910-4.
  13. ^ Morstein-Marx, Robert (2021). Julius Caesar and the Roman People. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-108-83784-2.
  14. ^ Sirianni, Frank A (1987). "Some Lost Authors of the Late Republic". Ancient Society. 17 (3): 84. ProQuest 1293500728.
  15. ^ Earl, Donald C. (1961). The political thought of Sallust. Internet Archive. Cambridge University Press. p. 83.
  16. ^ Schettino, Maria Teresa (2013). "The Use of Historical Sources". A Companion to Plutarch. pp. 417–436. doi:10.1002/9781118316450.ch28. ISBN 978-1-4051-9431-0.
  17. ^ Balsdon, J. P. V. D. (March 1957). "The Veracity of Caesar". Greece and Rome. 4 (1): 19–28. doi:10.1017/S0017383500015667. S2CID 161212559.
  18. ^ Roman Lives: A Selection of Eight Lives. Oxford University Press. 2008. pp. 300, 320. ISBN 978-0-19-953738-9.
  19. ^ Sihler, E. G. (1887). "The Tradition of Caesar's Gallic Wars from Cicero to Orosius". Transactions of the American Philological Association. 18: 19–29. doi:10.2307/2935772. JSTOR 2935772.
  20. ^ Osgood, Josiah (2009). "The Pen and the Sword: Writing and Conquest in Caesar's Gaul". Classical Antiquity. 28 (2): 328–358. doi:10.1525/ca.2009.28.2.328. hdl:10822/555441. JSTOR 10.1525/ca.2009.28.2.328.
  21. ^ McDougall, Iain (1991). "Dio and his Sources for Caesar's Campaigns in Gaul". Latomus. 50 (3): 616–638. JSTOR 41536119.
  22. ^ Grillo, Luca; Krebs, Christopher B. (2017). The Cambridge Companion to the Writings of Julius Caesar. Cambridge University Press. p. 307. ISBN 978-1-108-20609-9.
  23. ^ Cornell, Tim; Bispham, Edward; Rich, John; Smith, Christopher John (2013). The Fragments of the Roman Historians. Oxford University Press. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-19-927705-6.
  24. ^ Rose, H. J. (2023). A Handbook of Latin Literature: From the Earliest Times to the Death of St. Augustine. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-88259-9.[page needed]
  25. ^ Teuffel, W. S. (2023). A History of Roman Literature: Vol. 1. BoD – Books on Demand. p. 365. ISBN 978-3-382-81594-3.
  26. ^ Seneca. "On the Quality, as Contrasted with the Length, of Life". Moral letters to Lucilius.
  27. ^ Woudhuysen, George; Stover, Justin (28 January 2022). "Historiarum libri quinque: Hegesippus between Josephus and Sallust". Histos. 16: 1–27.
  28. ^ Bailey, D. R. Shackleton (December 1970). "Emendations of Seneca: EPISTULAE". The Classical Quarterly. 20 (2): 350–363. doi:10.1017/S000983880003634X. S2CID 170099720.
  29. ^ Hendrickson, G. L. (January 1917). "Horace and Valerius Cato. II". Classical Philology. 12 (1): 77–92. doi:10.1086/358886. JSTOR 262483. S2CID 161813188.
  30. ^ Merrill, Elmer Truesdell, ed. (1893). Catullus. p. 46. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674732261. ISBN 978-0-674-73225-4.
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