Zenobius

Zenobius (Greek Ζηνόβιος ) was a living in the first half of the 2nd century AD, Greek sophist, Parömiograph and philologist.

Life and work

Zenobius taught according to the Suda at the time of the Emperor Hadrian rhetoric in Rome. He wrote an Epitome of Proverbs collections of Greek grammarian Didymos and Lukillos of Tarrha in three books, which is not handed in their original version, but only diluted in later processing. Maybe Zenobius with Hadrian was personally acquainted, since he wrote a birthday speech to the Princeps. He also translated the historical writings of the Roman historian Sallust into Greek, but these latter two works are lost.

The collection of proverbs of Zenobius is delivered in two traditional strands, of which the so-called Vulgate goes back to the Codex Pari sine 3070 and is an alphabetically arranged processing, while the so-called recensio Athoa on a discovered on Mount Athos manuscript, the Codex Pari Sinus suppl. 1164 is based and the original version is likely to be closer. Zenobius wrote this work in the spirit of the Second Sophistic. In it follows the citation of the proverb, the explanation of its meaning, or its origin.