Lucius Accius

Lucius Accius (c. 170 BC in Pesaro, Marche, † 90 BC) was a Roman tragic poet. He came from a Freedmen's family; his exact year of death is unknown, but he must have reached a great age, since Cicero ( 106-43 BC) reported in Brutus of having to talk to him about literature.

Accius was a prolific poet, who enjoyed high reputation ( Horace, Epistulae, ii i, 56;. Cicero, Pro Plancio, 24). The titles and approximately 700 fragmentary lines of about 50 of his plays have survived. Mostly he transferred tragedies ( Fabulae crepidatae ) from the Greek, with the legends of the Trojan War and the myths around Pelops were favorite subjects. His plays Brutus and Decius, however, were inspired by Roman history, so they negotiated by the expulsion of the last of the seven legendary kings of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or by the consul Publius Decius Mus, who sacrificed himself in the battle of Sentino for his army should have. The text fragments obtained are powerful in their own language and full of vivid descriptions written ( cf. Ovid Amores I, 15:19 ).

He also treated grammatical, literary-historical and antiquarian questions after the fashion of his time in different metrical forms ( dramatic example in the Didascalica and Pragmatica poetry and stage character ). Parerga and Praxidica act of agriculture.

The authorship of a proverb, that the motto of Caligula was to be later, awarded him Oderint dum metuant ("You should hate me peaceful, as long as they fear me ").

Editions and translations

• Jacqueline Dangel (Ed.): Accius: Oeuvres ( fragments ). Les Belles Lettres, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-251-01383-0 ( critical edition with French translation and commentary )
• Anna Resta Barrile (ed.): Lucio Accio: Frammenti dalle tragedie e dalle preteste. Zanichelli, Bologna 1987 ( non-critical edition with Italian translation )
• Quirino Franc Hella ( ed.): Lucii AccII tragoediarum fragmentary. Compositori, Bologna, 1968 ( critical edition with Italian translation )
• Vincenzo D' Anto (ed.): L. Accio: I frammenti delle tragedie. Milella, Lecce 1980, ISBN 88-7048-011-9 ( critical edition with detailed commentary )
• Giampiero Scafoglio (ed. ): L' Astyanax di Accio. Saggio sul background mitografico, testo e commento critico dei frammenti. Latomus, Bruxelles 2006, ISBN 2-87031-236-9 ( detailed introduction, critical edition and commentary )