Aufidius Bassus was a renowned Roman historian and orator who lived in the reign of Augustus and Tiberius.
Bassus was a man much admired in Rome for his eloquence. He drew up an account of the Roman wars in Germany. Uncertainty in his health perhaps prevented him from holding a public office. He suddenly died of illness leaving his works unfinished.
His work, which probably began with the Roman civil wars or the death of Julius Caesar up to the end of the Sejanus, or perhaps Tiberius, was continued in thirty-one books by Pliny the Elder. Pliny the Elder carried it down at least as far as the end of Nero's reign. Bassus' other historical work was a Bellum Germanicum, which was published before his Histories.
Seneca the Elder speaks highly of Bassus as a historian; however, the fragments preserved in that writer's Suasoriae (vi. 23) relating to the death of Cicero are characterized by an affected style.
References
- ^ Alexander Lobur, John (3 June 2008). Consensus, Concordia and the Formation of Roman Imperial Ideology. Oxon: Routledge. p. 148. ISBN 978-1-135-86753-9. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ Smith, William (1 January 2012). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Volume 1. Luton, United Kingdom: Taylor and Walton. p. 471. ISBN 978-1-130-29074-5. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ Sorek, Susan (3 May 2012). Ancient Historians: A Student Handbook. London: A&C Black. p. 197. ISBN 978-1-441-17991-3. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ Hornblower, Simon (3 June 2008). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-199-54556-8. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- Scullard, H. H. (13 May 2013). From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome 133 BC to AD 68. Oxon: Routledge. p. 355. ISBN 978-1-136-78386-9. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bassus, Aufidius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 498. Endnotes:
- Pliny, Nat. Hist., praefatio, 20
- Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus, 23
- Quintilian, Instit x. I. 103.
External links
- Seneca (1917). "XXX On Conquering the Conqueror". Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. Vol. I. Translated by Gummere, Richard M. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann Ltd. pp. 210-221. Retrieved 9 August 2020 – via Internet Archive.