As a mark of his unaffected modesty, Pliny (Ep. ix. 19) tells us: vetuit exstrui monimentum: sed quibus verbis? ‘impensa monimenta supervacua est: memoria nostri durabit, si vita meruimus.’
AULUS GELLIUS, circ. 123-175 A.D.
1. Life.
GELLIUS.
All that is known about his life is gathered from occasional hints in his own writings. He seems to have spent his early years at Rome, studying under the most famous teachers, first at Rome and afterwards at Athens, and then to have returned to Rome, where he spent the remaining years of his life in literary pursuits and in the society of a large circle of friends.
2. Works.
The Noctes Atticae (so called because it was begun during the long nights of winter in a country house in Attica) in twenty books consists of numerous extracts from Greek and Roman writers on subjects connected with history, philosophy, philology, natural science and antiquities, illustrated by abundant criticisms and discussions. It is, in fact, a commonplace book, and the arrangement of the contents is merely casual, following the course of his reading of Greek and Latin authors. The work is, however, of special value to us from the very numerous quotations from ancient authors preserved by him alone.
3. Style.
His language is sober but full of archaisms, which he much affected (he gives, therefore, no quotations from post-Augustan writers). His style shows the defects of an age in which men had ceased to feel the full meaning of the words they used, and strove to hide the triviality of a subject under obscure phrases and florid expression. Yet, on the whole, he is a very interesting writer, and the last that can in any way be called classical.
‘Vir elegantissimi eloquii et multae ac facundae scientiae.’—St. Augustine, 400 A.D.