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Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius

1st century BC Roman historian and writer

1st century BC Roman historian and writer

Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius was a Roman historian. Little is known of his life, but he probably lived in the 1st century BCE.

Work

Quadrigarius's annals spanned at least 23 books. They began with the conquest of Rome by the Gauls (BCE), reached Cannae by Book 5, and ended with the age of Sulla, or 82BCE.

The surviving fragments of his work were collected by Hermann Peter. The largest fragment is preserved in Aulus Gellius, and concerns a single combat between T. Manlius Torquatus and a Gaul.

Legacy

Quadrigarius's work was considered very important, especially for the contemporary history he narrates. From its sixth book onward, Livy's History of Rome used Quadrigarius and Valerius Antias as major sources, (if not uncritically), and it seems Livy especially drew on Quadrigarius for trophies placed in the Capitoline temple and lost before Livy's time in the fire of 83 BCE. He is cited by Aulus Gellius, and he was probably the "Clodius" mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Numa.

The judgment of his prose has varied. Some considered that it was his lively style which ensured his survival in various extracts; but more perhaps would agree with Fronto that his language was pure and colloquial (“puri ac prope cotidiani sermonis”), and that it benefited from its straightforwardness, and absence of archaisms.

References

Citations

Bibliography

  • W. Kierdorf in Brill's New Pauly s.v. Claudius [I 30]
  • A. Klotz, "Der Annalist Q. Claudius Quadrigarius." Rheinische Museum 91 (1942) 268–285.
  • E. Badian, "The Early Historians" in T. Dorey (ed.) Latin Historians (1966) 1-38.

References

  1. J C Yardley, Livy: Hannibal’s War (OUP 2006) p. xxxi
  2. H. Peter, ''Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae'', I, 205-237.
  3. Aulus Gellius, IX, 13.
  4. H J Rose, ''A Handbook of Latin Literature'' (London 1967) p. 202
  5. J C Yardley, ''Livy: Hannibal’s War'' (OUP 2006) p. xxxi
  6. Forsythe, Gary. (2011). "A companion to Greek and Roman historiography". Wiley-Blackwell Pub.
  7. [[Plutarch]], ''[[Parallel Lives]]: Life of Numa'', I, 2.
  8. S Usher, ''The Historians of Greece and Rome'' (London 1969) p. 136
  9. H J Rose, ''A Handbook of Latin Literature'' (London 1967) p. 202
  10. M von Albrecht, ''A History of Roman Literature'' (1997) p. 385
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