Prisciānus
1.
A Latin grammarian of Caesarea, in Mauritania, who lived, at the beginning of the sixth
century A.D., as a teacher of the Latin language in Constantinople. He there compiled, in
addition to a number of smaller grammatical works, his
Institutiones
Grammaticae in eighteen books, the fullest and completest systematic Latin grammar
which has come down to us. This work, which is of great importance owing to its ample
quotations from ancient literature, was for a long time, in the Middle Ages, the school-book
in ordinary use in the shape of an epitome by Rabanus Maurus, and formed the foundation for
the earlier treatises on Latin grammar in modern times. We also possess an insipid
panegyrical poem written by Priscian on the emperor Anastasius, a translation of the
Cosmography of the geographer Dionysius, in hexameter verse, besides a grammatical catechism
on twelve lines of the
Aeneid for school use, a treatise on accent, a treatise
on declension, a treatise on symbols for coins and weights, a treatise on the metres of
Terence, a translation of the
Προγυμνάσματα
(
Praeexercitamenta) of Hermogenes, a poem
De Sideribus, and
two epigrams. The best editions of Priscianus are those of Krehl
(Leipzig,
1819-20) in 2 vols. and Keil in his
Grammatici Latini
(1855). (See
Grammatica.)
2.
A physician, who lived in the fifth century, named Theodōrus
Prisciānus, has left us a
Medicina Praesentanea (a book of
rapid curatives) in five books.
3.
Lydus, a Neo-Platonic philosopher in the reign of
Justinian. He wrote a paraphrase and commentary on the physics of Theophrastus
(
Metaphrasis in Theophrastum), and
Solutiones to certain
philosophic questions. His remains are edited by Bywater
(1886).
