I.

LITERARY NOTICE CONCERNING NONIUS MARCELLUS.

1.

His life and writings.

Nonius Marcellus, a Peripatetic (otherwise a grammarian) from Tibur (alternatively, Tiburticensis), lived around the year 337 AD, under the emperor Constantius. He wrote a compendium of knowledge for his son, On the Propriety of Words, a book divided into eighteen chapters. Priscian, in his seventh book, cites a passage from the 19th chapter regarding the inquiry of scholars, which exists there to this day under the word strictae tight/drawn. Furthermore, among the authors whom Nonius cites, there is scarcely any one much younger than Apuleius. Is. Vossius rightly observes, on page 212 of his commentary on Catullus, that it is common for the learned to insult this grammarian, who deserved better than almost anyone of his status regarding the Latin language. You may compare G. I. Vossius on Philology, chapter 5; Tillemont's History of the Emperors, Vol. IV, p. 476; Baillet's Judgments of the Learned, Vol. II, no. 620; Io. Alb. Fabricius's Latin Library, Book IV, ch. 6, § 4; Universal World History, Vol. XIV, p. 184; Hamberger's Reliable News, Vol. II, p. 703, etc.

2.

Manuscripts.

C. I. C. Reuvens provides a broad list of them in his Literary Collections (Leiden, 1815, 8vo), pp. 185–189. Among the handwritten codices of Nonius, the Parisian stands out, located at the church of St. Victor, which Mercer believed to have been the source of all others. Regarding the Guelferbytanus Gudianus codex, see Heusinger.