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Latin Literature

About 40 million people, roughly half of the population of the Roman Empire spoke Latin, the standard being the written Latin which evolved in Rome around the I century AD. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Classic Latin became the language of the Church, remaining a fundamental means of communication between nations and scholars. During the centuries before the rise of the several national languages in the former provinces of the Western Empire it was virtually the sole literary language.

The same as for the language, Latin Literature can be divided into three periods: Early, Classical and Late. There is a further subdivision of Classical Latin literature into the Golden and the Silver Ages.

Few is now extant of Early Latin literature, notably the 21 (of a total of 130) surviving comedies adapted from the Greek of Menander by Titus Maccius Plautus (254-184 BC) and the 6 plays adapted from Late Greek Attic comedies by Terence (Publius Terentius Afer) (?-159 BC). Mention should also be made to Cato the Elder (Marcus Porcius Cato) (234–149 BC), whose only surviving work, De Agricultura, can give us little idea of the impact his prose had on Latin literature. Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC) is considered the father of Roman poetry, introducing some of the forms and patterns used by later writers.

The Silver Age is considered as being inferior in quality to the Golden Age, though its writers have been reappraised over the centuries. The main poets are Marcus Manilius (1st century AD), Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) (39-65 AD), Persius (Aulus Persius Flaccus) (34-62 AD) and Publius Papinius Statius, (Ca. 45-96 AD).

		Among prose writers we can cite Petronius (C. Petronius Arbiter or Titus Petronius) (Ca.27-66 AD). Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus) (23–79 AD), Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Ca. 35-95 AD), Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) (63-Ca.113 AD), Aulus Gellius (Ca. 125-after 180 AD), Lucius Apuleius (Ca. 123-5-Ca. 180 AD), Author of The Golden Ass, where we can find the charming story of Cupid and Psyche, so similar to a modern fairy-tale; and Quintus Asconius Pedianus (Ca. 9 BC-Ca. 76 AD). The theatre was continued by Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (Ca. 4 BC– 65 AD), while among the satirists we have Juvenal (Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis), (late I century AD— early II century AD), Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis) (Ca. 38/41-Ca 102/103).
Pliny the Younger

The main writers of history were Tacitus (Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus) (Ca. 56–Ca. 117) and Suetonius (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus) (69—122).

Writers of Late Latin are Decimus Magnus Ausonius (Ca. 310-395), Ammianus Marcellinus (Ca. 325 Ca. 391), Dionysius Cato (III or IV century AD), Claudian (Claudius Claudianus) (Ca. 395-404), Eutropius (late IV century), Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius (Ca. 395–423), Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (Ca. 340–Ca. 402), St Augustine of Hippo (Aurelius Augustinus) (354–430), St Jerome (Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus) (Ca. 347–420), and Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius) (480–524/5 AD), author of the Consolation of Philosophy, written when he was in prison, waiting for the death sentence to which he had been condemned to be carried out.

The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121-180) could be included here on the force of his Meditations, only that he wrote them in Greek.