Aelius Donatus

Aelius Donatus (* 320, † 380 ) was a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric. About his life is only known that he was the teacher of St. Jerome.

He wrote a number of works, several of which have been preserved:

• A partially incomplete commentary on the playwright Terence, which was compiled from other comments; it is obtained only as machining.
• His life Virgil's probably based on the lost Vita Suetonius, contains some fragments of his notes on Virgil's poetry, but stops after the Eclogues (also called Bucolics ) suddenly; of the work only two discharges are by Servius, which also strongly criticized it, get: one is the biography of Virgil, on the other hand to the Eclogues.
• His two grammatical textbooks ( artes grammaticae ) are indeed not original content, and draw from the same sources such as grammarians Charisius and Diomedes. Nevertheless, they gained such a wide spread that they can be described, without exaggeration as standard works of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. This is especially true for the well-known under the name Ars minor demolition of parts of speech doctrine, which is held in question - answer format and is intended for a beginner audience. The extensive Ars maior other hand, is designed for advanced and discussed example, the complex of language accuracy ( vitia et virtutes orationis ). Both works are annotated in German study editions (2008 and 2009 ) before translated.

Donatus ' popularity eventually led to it for vernacular grammar treatises of any kind ( the so-called Donat ) was in the Middle Ages the namesake.

Aelius Donatus should not be confused with Tiberius Claudius Donatus, author of the Aeneid commentary ( interpretationes ), who lived about fifty years later.