Background
Annaeus Cornutus was a native of Leptis in Libya, but resided for the most part in Rome.
Annaeus Cornutus was a native of Leptis in Libya, but resided for the most part in Rome.
Annaeus Cornutus was banished by Nero (in 66 or 68) for having indirectly disparaged the emperor's projected history of the Romans in heroic verse (Dio Cassius lxii. 29), after which time nothing more is heard of him. He was the author of various rhetorical works in both Greek and Latin ('Prjropocal Tex^at, De figuris sententiarum). Another rhetorician, also named Cornutus, who flourished a. d. 200-250 (or in the second half of the 2nd century) was the author of a treatise Tex*''? тод тгоХткод X070v (ed. J. Graeven, 1890). A philosophical treatise, Theologiae Graecae compendium (of which the Greek title is uncertain; perhaps, 'EXXijwi) deoXoyia, or Пер! tt)s t&v веш фЬаесоs, though the latter may be the title of an abridgment of the former) is still extant. It is a manual of " popular mythology as expounded in the etymological and symbolical interpretations of the Stoics " (Sandys), and although marred by many absurd etymologies, abounds in beautiful thoughts (ed. C. Lang, 1881). Simplicius and Porphyry refer to his commentary on the Categories of Aristotle, whose philosophy he is said to have defended against an opponent Athenodorus in a treatise 'Агпурафг; irpos 'AdrivoSwpov. His Aristotelian studies were probably his most important work. A commentary on Virgil (frequently quoted by Servius) and Scholia to Persius arc also attributed to him; the latter, however, are of much later date, and are assigned by Jahn to the Carolingian period.