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Nonius Marcellus was a late antiquity Linguist of the 4th or 5th century AD. His only surviving work is the De compendiosa doctrina, a dictionary or encyclopedia in 20 books that shows his interests in and Latin literature from Plautus to Apuleius. Nonius may have come from Africa.Matthew Bunson, A Dictionary of the Roman Empire (Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 258.
Nonius quotes Aulus Gellius and other 2nd-century compilers, and is himself quoted and praised three times by Priscian in the 5th century, and so must have lived between these dates.W. M. Lindsay, Noni Marcelli, vol. 1, Teubner, 1903, p. xiii. Note 2 lists references to Nonius by Priscian in Inst. I, p. 35; I. p. 269 and 499. According to the Cambridge History of Classical Literature, he was probably active in the first half of the 4th century,Robert Browning, "Grammarians," in the Cambridge History of Classical Literature, vol. 2: Latin Literature, 1982, p. 769. although some scholars of the 19th and early 20th centuries thought he might have lived later in the 4th or even in the 5th century.W. M. Lindsay, Nonius Marcellus, St. Andrews University Publications 1, Oxford: Parker (1901), p. 1. More recently it has been argued that Nonius lived in the Severan dynasty period and can be dated to around A.D. 205–20.Paul T. Keyser, Late Authors in Nonius Marcellus and Other Evidence of His Date, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 96 (1994), pp. 369–389. pp. 388–9: "The prevailing belief that Nonius must belong roughly to the fourth century A.D. is based on little more than the tendency to presume that an undatable Latin work associated with a Roman aristocrat dates from the fourth century A.D. ... The inference that Nonius is Severan is ... based on ... the otherwise isolated and inexplicable cluster of quotations of authors dated to ca. A.D. 160-210 in the context of Nonius' express preference for the auctoritas of Republican and Augustan authors. Furthermore, this is supported by some items of contemporary language he records, by his heavy use of rolls rather than codex, and by his designation as a Peripatetic. In the end, one can conclude that he is to be dated to ca. A.D. 205–20."
The first twelve of Nonius's twenty books are organized grammatically around words or forms of words, and the remaining eight by subject matter such as clothing, weapons, food, etc. Each entry of either type consists of a brief definition and quotations from Republican-era writers, taken from 2nd-century sources, including Aulus Gellius and Fronto, rather than the original texts. "His ignorance and inattention," notes the Cambridge History of Classical Literature, "diminish but cannot destroy the value of his compilation."Browning, Cambridge History of Classical Literature, vol. 2: Latin Literature, p. 769.
The research of W. M. Lindsay Nonius Marcellus' Dictionary of Republican Latin, 1901. Reference from Habinek. and later of Strzelecki Paulys Real-Encyclopadie 33.882-97. Reference from Habinek. has shown that Nonius obtained many of his lemmata (entries) and the first citation for each from earlier grammatical texts which are now lost. The remainder of the entries and the extra citations belong to 41 books which he either owned or borrowed from a local library. For each section (either a book or a letter entry within a book), Nonius worked through his 41 lists from 41 volumes in the same order, first to find the lead-citation, and then again in order for additional citations. Based on this methodology, it can be determined whether Nonius is quoting an author first-hand, or from a grammar which was full of errors.Thomas Habinek, The colometry of Latin prose (1985), pp. 115–6. Preview here.
The Doctrina preserves fragments from early dramatists, annalists, satirists, and antiquarian writers. In arranging quotations from authors, Nonius always follows the same order, beginning with Plautus and ending with Varro and Cato. The grammarians Priscian and Fulgentius borrowed largely from his book, and in the 5th century a certain Julius Tryphonianus Sabinus brought out a revised and annotated edition.1911 Encyclopædia Britannica entry.
The Doctrina was edited with notes by J. Mercier in 1614 at Paris under the title De varia significatione Verborum.George Crabb (1833), Universal historical dictionary, volume 2, no page numbers, online here: "NONIUS, Marcellus, (Biog.) a grammarian and peripatetic philosopher and a native of Tibur, whose treatise, 'De varia significatione verborum' was edited by Mercer, 8vo, Paris, 1614." The page numbers of the Mercier edition are used as a reference in later editions (e.g. 121 M. means "page 121 of the Mercier edition").
Nonius also wrote a volume of letters On the neglect of study, which is lost but to which he refers in the Doctrina.W. M. Lindsay, Nonius Marcellus, St. Andrews University Publications 1, Oxford: Parker (1901), p. 1: "He published a volume of letters 'On the Neglect of Study,' from which he quotes a pompous sentence in illustration of the word meridies (p. 451 of Mercier's edition)."
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