L. Annaeus Cornutus: Greek Theology, Fragments, and Testimonia

Writings from the Greco-Roman World #42

by George Boys-Stones, G R Boys-Stones (Contributor)

The first English translation of Greek Theology The first-century CE North African philosopher Cornutus lived in Rome as a philosopher and is best known today for his surviving work Greek Theology , which explores the origins and names of the Greek gods. However, he was also interested in the language and literature of the poets Persius and Lucan and wrote one of the first commentaries on Virgil. This book collects and translates all of our evidence for Cornutus for the first time and includes the first published English translation of Greek Theology . This collection offers entirely fresh insight into the intellectual world of the first century. Features

Genres: Philosophy

Kindle Edition

Published December 10, 2018

Reviews

[Erick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Annaeus Cornutus was a notable later Stoic. He was a first century contemporary of Plutarch and Seneca. He is regarded as the teacher of the satirist Persius.

Cornutus is one of the few Greek speaking Stoics that still has an extant work. His Greek Theology is notable in that it is probably the only Stoic work dedicated to theology/cosmology that still exists. For that alone, Cornutus is probably essential reading if one is studying Greek Philosophy generally, and Stoicism specifically. It is probable that many of the ideas of earlier Stoics (e.g. Chrysippus) is reiterated here. Regardless, at the very least, it is a good gauge of what many Stoics believed in the first century in regards to the topic of theology.

As with many philosophical pagans, Cornutus discourses on the various gods by theorizing their relation to various etymologies of their respective names (e.g. Hera is correlated to Aer). It is doubtful that all of these supposed correlations are sound, but one cannot deny that it was common philosophical practice to appeal to such lines of reasoning. Out of this method, philosophers were able to tie the various gods to the elements and various cosmological phenomena. A system of theological cosmology was built out of such methods, such as we have here.

This work is important and is worth reading and keeping as a reference. There's not much that remains of the Stoics. As far as complete works go, all of the remaining works are late and mostly from Roman authors who wrote in Latin. Of those that do remain, almost all of them are of an ethical nature. While there are some references to cosmology in Marcus Aurelius and in various works of Seneca (e.g. Natural Questions) and Pliny the Elder (e.g. Natural History), Cornutus is pretty much the only example of a complete Stoic work that is dedicated to theology and cosmology exclusively. As such, it is almost certainly essential reading.