Lactantius
1.
Firmiānus (in some MSS. called Lucius Caecilius or
Caelius). An eminent
Christian writer of the early part of the fourth century, whose birthplace is uncertain. He
taught rhetoric at Nicomedia in Bithynia, and it was probably there that he became converted
to Christianity. About the year 313 he was invited by Constantine the Great to act as tutor
to his son Crispus. He died about 325. His chief work is a defence of Christianity, in seven
books, entitled
Institutiones Divinae, written in reply to an attack upon the
faith made by two pagan writers. He also wrote treatises
De Ira Dei and
De Opificio Dei, the latter being an account of anthropology from the
Christian standpoint. A fourth book, by some not credited to him, is entitled
De
Mortibus Persecutorum, in which he tries to show that all the persecutors of the
Christians have met with violent deaths. There exists, also, an epitome of the
Institutiones Divinae, made by Lactantius. His Latinity is so pure that he is
styled “the Christian Cicero.” During the Middle Ages his writings were
extremely popular, and the MSS. of them are very numerous. The first book ever printed in
Italy
(1465) was a Lactantius. The earlier texts are enumerated by Dufresnoy in
his edition
(2 vols. 1748). Lactantius has also been edited by Gersdorf, in the
Bibl. Pat. Eccles. Lat. (Leipzig, 1842- 1844); by Migne in
vols. vi. and vii. of his
Patrologia (Paris, 1844); and by
Laubmann and S. Brandt
(Vienna, 1891). On his life, see P. Brandt,
Das Leben des Lactantius (Vienna, 1890).
2.
Placĭdus. The author of a collection of scholia on the
Thebaïs of Statius, probably the same as the glossator Luctatius (?)
Placidus, who has left a book of glosses with Latin commentaries. They are chiefly on Plautus
and Lucilius. See Goetz,
De Placidi Glossis (Jena, 1886), Onions
in the (Eng.)
Journal of Philology, xi. 75, xii. 77, and xv. 167; and the
article
Glossa.
