Quadra'tus, Asi'nius
the author of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology (Brunck,
Anal. vol. ii. p. 299; Jacobs,
Anth. Graec. vol. iii. p. 13), which is described in the Planudean Anthology (p. 203, Steph., p. 206, Wechel.) as of uncertain authorship, but in the Palatine MS. is headed
Ἀσιννίου Κουαδράτου, with the further superscription,
εἰς τοὺς ἀναιρεθέντας ὑπὸ τοῦ τῶν Ῥωμαίων ὑπάτου Σύλα, according to which it would be inferred that the writer of the epigram was contemporary with Sulla. (
Anth. Pal. 7.312.)
But this lemma can scarcely be regarded as anything more than the conjecture of a grammarian, on the truth of which the epigram itself does not furnish sufficient evidence to decide.
It is the epitaph of some enemies of the Romans (apparently foreign enemies), who had fallen by a secret and treacherous death, after fighting most bravely.
There is nothing in it' to support the conjecture of Salmasius, that it refers to the death of Catiline and his associates. Jacobs, following the lemma of the Palatine MS., suggests that it may refer to the slaughter of many of the Athenians, after the taking of Athens by Sulla. (
Animadv. in Anth. Graec. vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 366.) To these another conjecture might be added, namely, that the epigram refers to some event which occurred in the later wars of Rome, and that its author is no other than the Roman historian of the time of Philippus.
See below.
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