Corippus
Flavius Cresconius Corippus (or Gorippus, Germanized Coripp; * 500, † 570 ) was a late ancient Latin poet. He is often regarded as the last major Latin poet of antiquity.
Life and work
About Coripps ( according to the evidence of most of the manuscripts his name was rather Goripp ) life is little known, but two of his works are obtained which are identified him as the most recent major Latin poets of antiquity. His sound rhetorical and literary education learned Coripp, who came from North Africa, (as well as Fulgentius and Luxorius ), nor in time, as the area around Carthage was ruled by the Vandals. 533 had then sent an army of the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian, the reconquered the province of Africa; but the area remained unsettled for years, until it was finally pacified 548 of the imperial army master Johannes Troglita. It is this general, the Coripp around 550 dedicated his large, oriented to Virgil epic of John. It describes, in eight books, especially the struggles of the Romans and the Moors, and was only rediscovered in 1820. Although Coripp reached not the genius of his model, yet shows the epic, to what remarkable artistic achievements of the outgoing Late Antiquity was still able. Even as a historical source is the St. John of value, Coripp to be aware of his contemporary, the historian Prokopios of Caesarea, referred, who described about the same time Justinian's Vandal wars in the third and fourth book of his Histories.
The second surviving work is the eulogy Coripps In Laudem Iustini Augusti Minoris in four books ( the fourth book is only incomplete ), which is dedicated to Justinian's nephew and successor Justin II and was 565-567. Whether Coripp was at this time, even locally in Constantinople Opel, is not quite certain; just as it is possible because of the tradition position that the work was still in Africa. Coripp was probably run into financial trouble, and that he was trying to win the favor of the new emperor, he justified by the ( not uncontroversial ) claim to the throne. This work also reflects Coripps erudition and rhetorical talent. It mainly provides very important information about the late Roman court etiquette and the life of the capital's population. Also noteworthy is the fact that, as Coripps example shows, even in the second half of the 6th century high linguistic Latin works were written and received in the Eastern Roman Empire 's beside the way - the Gräzisierung of the kingdom strode Although at that time rapidly advancing but was not yet complete.
After Coripp long time had been respected by the research more on the edge, has also increased dramatically in the wake of the enormous increase in interest in late antiquity, the number of studies on this long underrated author in recent years.