[2063] Of this writer no particulars whatever are known.
[2064] In most editions this name appears as L. Ateius Capito, but Sillig separates them, and with propriety it would appear, as the name of Capito the great legist was not Lucius. Ateius here mentioned was probably the person surnamed Prætextatus, and Philologus, a freedman of the jurist Ateius Capito. For Sallust the historian he composed an Abstract of Roman History, and for Asinius Pollio he compiled precepts on the Art of Writing. His Commentaries were numerous, but a few only were surviving in the time of Suetonius.
[2065] C. Ateius Capito, one of the most famous of the Roman legists, and a zealous partisan of Augustus, who had him elevated to the Consulship A.D. 5. He was the rival of Labeo, the republican jurist. His legal works were very voluminous, and extracts from them are to be found in the Digest. He also wrote a work on the Pontifical Rights and the Law of Sacrifices.
[2066] A distinguished grammarian of the latter part of the first century B.C. He was entrusted by Augustus with the education of his grandsons Caius and Lucius Cæsar. He died at an advanced age in the reign of Tiberius. He wrote upon antiquities, history, and philosophy: among his numerous works a History of the Etruscans is mentioned, also a treatise on Orthography. Pliny quotes him very frequently.
[2068] He is mentioned in c. [17], but nothing more is known of him.
[2069] Nothing is known of him. The younger Pliny addressed three Epistles to a person of this name, B. ii. Ep. 15, B. v. Ep. 4, 14.
[2071] Also called by Pliny Cornelius Alexander. Suidas states that he was a native of Ephesus and a disciple of Crates, and during the war of Sylla in Greece was made prisoner and sold as a slave to C. Lentulus, who made him the tutor of his children, and afterwards restored him to freedom. Servius however says that he received the franchise from L. Cornelius Sylla. He was burnt with his house at Laurentum. Other writers say that he was a native of Catiæum in Lesser Phrygia. The surname of “Polyhistor” was given to him for his prodigious learning. His greatest work seems to have been a historical and geographical account of the world, in forty-two books. Other works of his are frequently mentioned by Plutarch, Photius, and other writers.
[2072] The historian of the Peloponnesian war, and the most famous, perhaps, of all the ancient writers in prose.