Curtius Rufus
Quintus. A Roman historian who flourished in
the first century of the Christian era. No particulars of his life are known, and no mention
is to be found in the Roman writers that can be positively referred to him, though Suetonius
mentions a Q. Curtius Rufus in his list of rhetoricians, and a Curtius Rufus is named by
Tacitus (
Ann. xi. 21) and by the younger Pliny (
Epist. vii. 27).
The ten books (
Historiarum Alexandri Magni Libri Decem) that he wrote are
believed to have been composed during the reign of Claudius on the strength of a passage in
the work itself (x. 9, 3-6), which seems to refer to the outbreak at Rome on the death of
Caligula, to which the accession of Claudius put an end. (See Schultess,
De Senecae
Quaestt. Nat. [Bonn, 1872]; and Berger,
De Curtii Aetate [Heidelberg,
1860]).
The history of Alexander the Great is treated in a rhetorical fashion with little historical
insight, introducing a number of picturesque details which are grouped effectively; and the
career of the great Macedonian is regarded as a series of brilliant and romantic adventures.
There are a number of carefully finished speeches worked into the narrative and much
sententious reflection. The style is evidently formed on that of Livy. The chief source of the
Historiae is
Clitarchus (q.v.).
Of the original ten books, the first two are lost, and there are lacunae in the others. The
work was read during the Middle Ages, and there are numerous MSS., the oldest being of the
ninth century. The
Historiae was edited by Erasmus
(1518), and the
first complete edition is that of Snakenburg
(Delft, 1724). Later editions, with
notes, are those of Schmieder
(Göttingen, 1803), Mützell
(Berlin, 1841), Zumpt
(Brunswick, 1849), Vogel
(3d ed.
Leipzig, 1885), Schmidt
(Prague, 1886), Dosson
(Paris,
1887); bks. viii. and ix., with English notes, by Heitland and Raven
(Cambridge,
1879). There is a lexicon to Curtius by Eichert
(2d ed. Hanover, 1880).
On the style, see the dissertations by Krah
(Insterb. 1886), Eger
(Giessen,
1885), Rauch
(Meiningen, 1889); and for a general account, Dosson,
Étude sur Q. Curce, sa Vie, et son Œuvre (Paris,
1887).
