Aufidius Bassus was a renowned Roman historian[1] and orator who lived in the reign of Augustus and Tiberius.[2]
Bassus was a man much admired in Rome[3] for his eloquence.[4] He drew up an account of the Roman wars in Germany.[2] Uncertainty in his health perhaps prevented him from holding a public office.[4] He suddenly died of illness leaving his works unfinished.[3]
His work, which probably began with the Roman civil wars or the death of Julius Caesar up to the end of the Sejanus, or perhaps Tiberius,[1][3] was continued in thirty-one books by Pliny the Elder.[2][5] Pliny the Elder carried it down at least as far as the end of Nero's reign. Bassus' other historical work was a Bellum Germanicum, which was published before his Histories.[6]
Seneca the Elder speaks highly of Bassus as a historian; however, the fragments preserved in that writer's Suasoriae (vi. 23) relating to the death of Cicero are characterized by an affected style.[6]
References
External links
- Seneca (1917). "XXX On Conquering the Conqueror". Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales. Vol. I. Translated by Gummere, Richard M. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann Ltd. pp. 210-221. Retrieved 9 August 2020 – via Internet Archive.