Ilias Latina

The Ilias Latina is a short Latin hexameter version of Homer's Iliad that gained popularity in antiquity and remained popular through the Middle Ages. It was very widely studied and read in Medieval schools as part of the standard Latin educational curriculum. According to Ernest Robert Curtius, it is a "crude condensation", the original 15,693 line poem being condensed into 1,070 lines.[1] It is attributed to Publius Baebius Italicus, said to be a Roman senator, and is dated to the decade 60–70 CE.[2] It includes at least two acrostic elements: the first lines (after emendation) spell out ITALICUS, while the last lines spell SCRIPSIT, which taken together translate to "Italicus wrote (it)."[3]

References

  1. ↑ European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, p.49
  2. ↑ Book review by Eleanor Dickey
  3. ↑ As they stand, the lines in the manuscripts in fact spell out ITALICES ... SCQIPSIT, which scholars have emended: Robinson, M. (2019). "Looking edgeways. Pursuing acrostics in Ovid and Virgil". The Classical Quarterly 69, no. 1: 290-308.

Further reading

  • Marco Scaffai, Baebii Italici Ilias Latina, Bologna: Pàtron Editore, 1982.
  • George A. Kennedy, The Latin Iliad. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Notes, 1998.
  • Steven R. Perkins, Achilles In Rome: The Latin Iliad of Baebius Italicus, Introduction, Latin text, English translation, 2006.
  • Maria Jennifer Falcone, Christoph Schubert, (eds.) Ilias Latina: Text, Interpretation, and Reception, Leiden: Brill, 2022.
  • Steven J. Green, Ilias Latina: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.
  • Italici Ilias latina, wyd. Fr. Plessis, Paris 1885.
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