SEXTUS POMPEIUS

FESTUS  , Roman grammarian, probably flourished in the 2nd century A.D . He made an epitome of the celebrated work De verborum significatu, a valuable treatise alphabetically arranged, written by M . Verrius Flaccus, a freedman and celebrated grammarian who flourished in the reign of Augustus . Festus gives the etymology as well as the meaning of every word; and his work throws considerable light on the language, mythology and antiquities of ancient Rome . He made a few alterations, and inserted some critical remarks of his own . He also omitted such ancient Latin words as had long been obsolete; these he discussed in a separate work now lost, entitled Priscorum verborum cum exemplis . Of Flaccus's work only a few fragments remain, and of Festus's epitome only one original copy is in existence . This MS., the Codex Festi Farnesianus at Naples, only contains the second half of the work (M-V) and that not in a perfect condition . It has been published in facsimile by Thewrewk de Ponor (1890) . At the close of the 8th century Paulus Diaconus abridged the abridgment . From his work and the solitary copy of the original attempts have been made with the aid of conjecture to reconstruct the treatise of Festus . Of the early editions the best are those of J .

Scaliger (1565) and Fulvius Ursinus (1581); in modern times, those of C . O . Muller (1839, reprinted 188o) and de Ponor (1889); see J . E . Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, vol. i . (1906) .