Fabius Planciades Fulgentius (fl. late 5th – early 6th century CE) was a Latin grammarian, and a native of Africa. Four extant works are attributed to him: (4th century - 5th century - 6th century - other centuries) Events Rome sacked by Visigoths in 410. ... (5th century — 6th century — 7th century — other centuries) Events The first academy of the east the Academy of Gundeshapur founded in Persia by the Persian Shah Khosrau I. Irish colonists and invaders, the Scots, began migrating to Caledonia (later known as Scotland) Glendalough monastery, Wicklow Ireland founded by St. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a language. ... Africa is the worlds second-largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. ...

1. Mythologiarum libri iii, dedicated to a certain Catus, a presbyter of Carthage, containing 75 myths briefly told, and then explained in the mystical and allegorical manner of the Stoics and Neoplatonists. For this purpose the author generally invokes the aid of etymologies which, borrowed from the philosophers, are highly absurd. As a Christian, Fulgentius sometimes (but less frequently than might have been expected) quotes the Bible by the side of the philosophers, to give a Christian colouring to the moral lesson.
2. Expositio Vergilianae continentiae (continentia meaning contents), a sort of appendix to the above, dedicated to Catus. The poet himself appears to the author and explains the twelve books of the Aeneid as a picture of human life. The three words arma (= virtus), vir (= sapientia), Primus (= princeps) in the first line represent respectively substantia corporalis, sensualis, ornans. Book i. symbolizes the birth and early childhood of man (the shipwreck of Aeneas denotes the peril of birth), book vi. the plunge into the depths of wisdom.
3. Expositio sermonum antiquorum, explanations of 63 rare and obsolete words, supported by quotations (sometimes from authors and works that never existed). It is much inferior to the similar work of Nonius, with which it is often edited.
4. Liber absque litteris de aetatibus mundi et hominis. In the manuscript heading of this work, the name of the author is given as Fabius Claudius Gordianus Fulgentius (Claudius is the name of the father, and Gordianus that of the grandfather of the bishop, to whom some attribute the work). The title Absque litteris indicates that one letter of the alphabet is wholly omitted in each successive book (A in bk. i., B in bk. ii.). Only 14 books are preserved. The matter is chiefly taken from sacred history.

In addition to these, Fulgentius speaks of early poetical attempts after the manner of Anacreon, and of a work called Physiologus, dealing with medical questions, and including a discussion of the mystical signification of the numbers 7 and 9. Presbyter is, in the Bible, a synonym for bishop (episkopos), referring to a leader in local Christian congregations. ... A map of the central Mediterranean Sea, showing the location of Carthage (near modern Tunis). ... A myth is often thought to be a lesson in story form which has deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for preliterate cultures, who preserve and cherish the wisdom of their elders through oral traditions by the use of skilled story tellers. ... A restored Stoa in Athens, Greece. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is an ancient school of philosophy beginning in the 3rd century A.D. It was based on the teachings of Plato and Platonists; but it interpreted Plato in many new ways, such that Neoplatonism was quite different from what Plato taught, though not many Neoplatonists would... A philosopher is a person devoted to studying and producing results in philosophy. ... The term Christian means belonging to Christ and is derived from the Greek noun Χριστός Khristós which means anointed one, which is itself a translation of the Hebrew word Moshiach (Hebrew: משיח, also written Messiah), (and in Arabic it is pronounced Maseeh مسيح). ... A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ... The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy where he became the ancestor of the Romans. ... Anacreon (born c. ...

Fulgentius is a representative of the so-called late African style, taking for his models Apuleius, Tertullian, and Martianus Capella. His language is bombastic, affected and incorrect, while the lengthy and elaborate periods make it difficult to understand his meaning. Lucius Apuleius (ca 123/5 - ca 180), an utterly Romanized Berber who described himself as half-Numidian half-Gaetulian, is remembered most for his bawdy picaresque Latin novel The Metamorphoses, better known as The Golden Ass. ... Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus, anglicized as Tertullian, (b. ... Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a writer of the late Latin period, whose career flourished some time during the 5th century, before the year 439. ...

References

See the edition of the four works by R. Helm (1898, Teubner series); also M. Zink, Der Mytholog Fulgentius (1867); E. Jungmann, De Fulgentii aetate et scriptis in Acta Societatis Philologae Lipsiensis, i. (1871); A. Ebert, Aligemeine Geschichte der Litt. des Mittelalters, i.; article "Fulgentius" by C. F. Bohr in Ersch and Gruber's Aligemeine Encyklopadie; Teuffel-Schwabe, History of Roman Literature (Eng. trans.)

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