Lucius Coelius Antipater

Lucius Coelius Antipater (c. 180 BC; † 120 BC) was a Roman jurist and historian.

Life and work

Lucius Coelius Antipater acted as a teacher of eloquence, his most famous student was Lucius Licinius Crassus. He is the pioneer of the genre of the historical monograph, the development of Sallust ( coniuratio Catilinae, Bellum Iugurthinum ) is completed. The long prevailing opinion, he was the son or grandson of a freed slave, is considered refuted.

He wrote in the last third of the 2nd century BC, but the first historical monograph in Rome, a story of the 2nd Punic War, in seven books, which is only fragments are preserved and whose title probably originally Historiae was, of Cicero is delivered with Bellum Punicum. It was characterized by wide use of sources ( both Roman historian Quintus Fabius Pictor and Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder and the possibly hannibal -friendly work of Silenos ) and lively and dramatic representation whose style is oriented to the Hellenistic historiography.

As an orator he was an engaging through design and style representation. His work had a long after-effect, as Marcus Junius Brutus made ​​at Epitome, Emperor Hadrian admired it, for many writers such as Livy, Plutarch, Virgil, Valerius Maximus and Frontinus it served as a source.