Aufidius Bassus

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

1. Alexander Lobur, John (3 June 2008). Consensus, Concordia and the Formation of Roman Imperial Ideology. Oxon: Routledge. p. 148. ISBN 978-1-135-86753-9. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
2. Smith, William (1 January 2012). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Volume 1. Luton, United Kingdom: Taylor and Walton. p. 471. ISBN 978-1-130-29074-5. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
3. Sorek, Susan (3 May 2012). Ancient Historians: A Student Handbook. London: A&C Black. p. 197. ISBN 978-1-441-17991-3. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
4. Hornblower, Simon (3 June 2008). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 148. ISBN 978-0-199-54556-8. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
5. Scullard, H. H. (13 May 2013). From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome 133 BC to AD 68. Oxon: Routledge. p. 355. ISBN 978-1-136-78386-9. Retrieved 8 March 2022.
6.  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bassus, Aufidius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 498. Endnotes:

   • Pliny, Nat. Hist., praefatio, 20
   • Tacitus, Dialogus de Oratoribus, 23
   • Quintilian, Instit x. I. 103.

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.