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Description
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This treatise by Macrobius is a commentary in two books on the Somnium Scipionis narrated by Cicero at the end of his De re publica. The nature of the dream, in which the elder Scipio appears to his adopted grandson, and describes the life of the good after death and the constitution of the universe from the Stoic point of view. Macrobius also discourses upon many points of physics in a series of essays which show the astronomical notions then current. The moral elevation of the fragment of Cicero gave this work a great popularity in the Middle Ages and was the most widely read Latin compendium of Neoplatonism of the 5th century A.D., This treatise includes one map on p. 154 [i.e. 144] where Europe, Africa and Asia are shown in the upper hemisphere as totally separated from a great southern continent [i.e. Antipodum Nobis Incognita] occupying the lower hemisphere by an intervening great ocean [i.e. Alveus Oceani]. He further labels his map with climatic zones according to the theory of Parmenides (as also more graphically shown on p. 119): two zones close to the poles subject to frigid air [i.e. frigida], either side of the equator a torrid zone [i.e. perusta] and between these two moderate or temperate zones [i.e. temperata]. Decoratively, he has 14 winds blowing across the globe., In the 'Saturnalia', an account of discussions held at the house of Vettius Praetextatus during the feast of the Saturnalia, Macrobius discusses the choice and proper use of food and drink, describing the courses at a banquet with their appropriate wines. Book 5 includes substantial text in Greek., Printer's device on t.p. ; initial., Some pages incorrectly numbered., Main Heritage Shelves General, PA6498 .M33 1560, Book, Item-ID: i15642604, BIB-ID: 1012324, Map only available in electronic version via the Internet at: http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-ra277-1x., Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Roman grammarian and philosopher, flourished during the reigns of Honorius and Arcadius (395-423). He himself states that he was not a Roman, but there is no certain evidence whether he was of Greek or perhaps African descent. |
