Life
He was a native of Leptis Magna in Libya, but resided for the most part in Rome. He is best known as the teacher and friend of Persius, whose fifth satire is addressed to him, as well as other distinguished students, such as Claudius Agathemerus. "Through Cornutus Persius was introduced to Annaeus, as well as to Lucan, who was of his own age, and also a disciple of Cornutus". At Persius' death, Cornutus returned to Persius' sisters a bequest made to him, but accepted Persius' library of some 700 scrolls. He revised the deceased poet's satires for publication, but handed them over to Caesius Bassus to edit, at the special request of the latter.
Among Persius's satires were lines that, as Suetonius records, "even lashed Nero himself, who was then the reigning prince. The verse ran as follows:
- Auriculas asini Mida rex habet
- (King Midas has an ass's ears)
but Cornutus altered it to:
- Auriculas asini quis non habet?
- Who has not an ass's ears?"
in order that it might not be supposed that it was meant to apply to Nero."
Annaeus Cornutus was banished by Nero nevertheless—in 66 or 68 CE—for having indirectly disparaged the emperor's projected history of the Romans in heroic verse, after which time nothing more is heard of him.
Read more about this topic: Lucius Annaeus Cornutus
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“After us they’ll fly in hot air balloons, coat styles will change, perhaps they’ll discover a sixth sense and cultivate it, but life will remain the same, a hard life full of secrets, but happy. And a thousand years from now man will still be sighing, “Oh! Life is so hard!” and will still, like now, be afraid of death and not want to die.”
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“But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)