Marcus Verrius Flaccus

Roman language and literature teacher

• Born: c. 60 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: c. 22 c.e.
• Place of death: Unknown

A onetime slave, Verrius established at Rome an innovative method for the teaching of Latin language and literature and, through his studies of Roman antiquities, contributed to modern understanding of Latin literature and Roman history.

Early Life

The biographer Suetonius supplies the basic biographical information about Marcus Verrius Flaccus (VEHR-ee-uhs FLAK-uhs) in his essay De grammaticis et rhetoribus (c. 120 c.e.; Lives of the Grammarians). This work by Suetonius, a discussion of teachers active in Rome during the last half of the first century b.c.e., includes the statement “Marcus Verrius Flaccus the freedman was especially renowned for his method of teaching.” Nothing of Verrius’s background is known except for his freedman’s status and the probable name of his former master, Marcus Verrius. (Manumitted Roman slaves normally took the first and family names of their former owner.)

The name Verrius points to the region about Naples, where others with precisely the same nomenclature and many of the same family name are known. Scholarly work that Verrius did late in his life for the Roman town of Praeneste (modern Palestrina), however, has suggested to some that Verrius may have had an early connection with this town 23 miles (37 kilometers) southeast of Rome.

Life’s Work

During Verrius’s time, several men of letters with similar backgrounds established private schools in Rome for the instruction of Latin language and literature. These schools normally took children at the age of eleven for several years of training in the reading, recitation, and writing of Latin, while other schoolmasters might also have trained the same students in Greek language and literature. Verrius’s school was notable because he forced his students to compete in writing and recitation, with prizes of rare literary editions for the victors. Verrius thus attracted the attention of the emperor Augustus, who invited Verrius to move his school to the Imperial palace and tutor—at a salary equal to that of a senior administrator—the emperor’s young grandsons, Gaius and Lucius. The appointment of Verrius as Imperial tutor must have occurred between 8 and 11 b.c.e. and is no doubt the reason for Saint Jerome’s assertion that Verrius “flourished” in 8 b.c.e.

Verrius wrote on a variety of subjects. Rerum memoria dignarum (things worth remembering), to judge from references to this work by Pliny the Elder and other ancient scholars, ranged from elephants to Roman religious lore and rituals. Other writings touched on the Etruscans and on Roman traditions. Several important works treated the Latin language: De orthographia (on correct spelling) apparently urged a return to old-fashioned ways of spelling (and pronouncing) Latin words; De obscuris Catonis (obscurities in Cato) explained unusual words in the orations and writings of Cato the Censor (who died in 149 b.c.e.). Verrius’s most influential work was his dictionary, De verborum significatu (on the meaning of words). This work, the first Latin lexicon, was an alphabetical list of Latin words with definitions, etymologies, and frequent quotations of examples of usage drawn from archaic Latin texts (c. 250-100 b.c.e.) otherwise unknown. For example, the dictionary’s entry under quartarios reads:

Romans used to call muleskinners hired on contract “fourth-parters” [quartarios] because the muleskinners customarily charged for their services a fourth part of the profit. Thus Lucilius [a Roman satirist who wrote at the end of the second century b.c.e.]: “And then the unspeakable men, like a bad fourth-partner, crashed against all of the tombstones.”

None of Verrius’s works has survived intact.

Suetonius also reports that the town of Praeneste dedicated a statue of Verrius to honor his work on a great calendar inscribed on marble and set up prominently in a public area of the town. Enough fragments of this calendar have been discovered at Praeneste to indicate its size—6 feet (1.8 meters) high and more than 16 feet (4.8 meters) wide—and the scope of Verrius’s work. The calendar listed the days of each month, with remarks on the religious and legal nature of each day and with notes on the pertinent religious festivals and historical and legendary events associated with each day. For example, he included this information for January 30:

A day on which legal business may be transacted, a day for religious rites. Festival decreed by the senate, because on this date the Altar of the Augustan Peace was dedicated in Mars’ Field [at Rome], when Drusus and Crispinus were consuls [9 b.c.e.].

The calendar has been dated to between 6 and 9 c.e. and therefore would have been the fruit of Verrius’s later years.

Verrius died sometime during the reign of the emperor Tiberius (14-37 c.e.). His rise from slave to acclaimed teacher and scholar illustrates well the social mobility possible for talented freedmen in ancient Rome.

Significance

Of Marcus Verrius Flaccus’s teaching methods nothing more is known, although his practice of forcing his students to compete for literary prizes has clearly had a long (if unacknowledged) history.

Suetonius observed that Verrius’s work on spelling was criticized by Scribonius Aphrodisius, a fellow freedman and contemporary rival in teaching, who attacked Verrius’s morals as well as his scholarship. Yet Verrius’s writings, especially his dictionary and his treatise on Cato’s vocabulary, were widely consulted and discussed in the second century c.e., when Roman literary scholars took a particular interest in Cato and other early writers of Latin. About the year 200 c.e., an otherwise unknown Latin scholar, Sextus Pompeius Festus, made an abridged edition of Verrius’s dictionary. The first half of Festus’s edition is lost, but a further abridgment of all Festus’s work was made by Paul the Deacon, a historian and teacher of Latin at the court of Charlemagne (c. 800 c.e.). Modern scholars, by studying what has survived of Festus’s edition and Paul’s condensed version of Festus, are thus able to judge the quality and content of Verrius’s dictionary.

As Verrius’s annotations to the Praenestine calendar have proved to be of significant value for those who study Roman history, so also Verrius’s dictionary, even in the abridged editions in which it has survived, is a major source for students of the Latin language and early Roman literature.

Bibliography

Baldwin, Barry. Studies in Aulus Gellius. Lawrence, Kans.: Coronado Press, 1975. Chapter 4 (“Scholarly Interests”) offers a lively discussion of Roman and Greek scholarship of the second century c.e. and of how students of Latin literature exploited previous studies, including the works of Verrius. Includes adequate notes citing the ancient and modern sources.

Bonner, Stanley Frederick. Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. The standard discussion of education in the ancient Roman world. Chapters 5 and 6 provide a general discussion of the schools of literature, language, and rhetoric in Rome. Includes sparse notes but a good bibliography.

Marrou, Henri Irénée. A History of Education in Antiquity. Translated by George Lamb. 1956. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. A broader and more detailed study than Bonner’s, this volume is arranged along chronological lines. In part 3, chapters 2 through 7 discuss the emergence and development of schools at Rome; chapter 5, in particular, covers what is known of schools of the type that Verrius established. Includes complete bibliographic notes.

Michels, Agnes Kirsopp. The Calendar of the Roman Republic. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967. A technical discussion of calendars in ancient Rome, with particular attention to inscribed wall calendars such as that created by Verrius at Praeneste. Includes notes and fine schematic drawings of ancient wall calendars.

Rawson, Elizabeth. Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985. Offers a concise discussion of the personalities associated with literary and language studies in ancient Italy in the time of Verrius and earlier generations. Contains detailed notes and a complete bibliography.

Suetonius Tranquillus, C. De grammaticis et rhetoribus. Edited and translated by Robert A. Kaster. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Kaster also provides an introduction and commentary. Suetonius’s work is a primary source for information on Verrius Flaccus.

Treggiari, Susan. Roman Freedmen During the Late Republic. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. The standard discussion in English of the social and legal circumstances of manumitted slaves in Roman history before c. 30 b.c.e. Discusses the prominence in Roman life of freedmen in education and other learned professions. Includes notes and a bibliography.

Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. Suetonius. Reprint. London: Bristol Classical Press, 1995. The best study in English of the ancient biographer. Treats Suetonius’s essay on ancient teachers of literature and rhetoric. The author discusses fully the history of the profession of teachers and literary men such as Verrius and Suetonius himself in Rome. Includes generous notes and a bibliography.