- Fenestella
Fenestella, (52 BC? - AD 19?), Roman
historian and encyclopaedicwriter , flourished in the reign ofTiberius . If the notice inJerome is correct, he lived from 52 BC to AD 19 (according to others 35 BC - AD 36).Taking Varro for his model, Fenestella was one of the chief representatives of the new style of historical writing which, in the place of the brilliant descriptive pictures of
Livy , discussed curious and out-of-the-way incidents and customs of political and social life, including literary history. He was the author of an "Annales", probably from the earliest times down to his own days.The fragments indicate the great variety of subjects discussed: the origin of the appeal to the people ("provocatio"); the use of
elephant s in the circus games; the wearing of gold rings; the introduction of the olive tree; the material for making the toga; the cultivation of the soil; certain details as to the lives ofCicero andTerence . The work was very much used (mention is made of an abridged edition) byPliny the Elder ,Asconius Pedianus (the commentator on Cicero), Nonius, and the philologists.A work published under the name of L. Fenestella ("De magistratibus et sacerdotiis Romanorum", 1510) is really by
A. D. Fiocchi , canon and papal secretary, and was subsequently published as by him (under the Latinized form of his name, Floccus), edited byAegidius Witsius (1561).References
*Fragments in
Hermann Peter , "Historicorum Romanorum fragmenta" (1883)
*Monograph byL. Mercklin (1844)
*Joseph Poeth "De fenestella historiarum scriptore et carminum" (1849)
*Martin Schanz , "Geschichte der Röm. Litt." ed. 2 (1901)
*Teuffel, "Hist. of Roman Literature", p. 259.
*1911
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