Elogium (literary genre)
[1][2] The elogia are sometimes synonyms with the tituli, the identifying inscriptions on wax images of deceased ancestors that were displayed in the atrium of the domus of noble families, but they are shorter than the laudatio funebris, the funeral oration.
In the imperial period, the elogium became a literary genre: texts were collected by Marcus Terentius Varro and Titus Pomponius Atticus, and writing elogia on famous deceased persons became a popular rhetorical exercise.
The word, which originally meant "praise", during the Imperial age got the additional meaning of "a concise sentence", as official police reports, criminal court rulings,[3] or brief descriptions of medical conditions.
[7] From the end of the 5th century BC onwards, probably in imitation of a Greek custom, the elogia were poetic epigrams with praising mention of dignities and victories, first in saturnine verses, later in hexameters.
Son of Barbatus,was Consul, Censor and Aedile at your side.He took Corsica and the city of Aleria,consecrated a temple to the Tempests, as a just return.From the 6th century BC onward, the same custom became more widespread – especially among the half-hellenized populace.
Since the end of the Republic, the epigraphy of the tombs distanced itself more and more from the model of the old elogium; the sepulchral inscriptions, also among the noble circles, appear increasingly as dedications to the deceased, so that their names are written in the dative case.
[7] Around 39 BC Marcus Terentius Varro published a work in 15 books entitled Imagines or hebdomades containing a literary copy of the old sepulchral elogia.
In this work were contained – as far as the preserved fragments indicate – the poetic signatures of the portraits of 700 famous personalities from all regions, Greeks as well as Romans, called epigrammata or elogia.
Three elogia from Varro's work dedicated to famous poets, Gnaeus Naevius, Plautus and Pacuvius, which are extant, derive from real funeral orations.
They only contained the name in the nominative case, the curulic offices (to which other magistracies were added later) and the high priesthoods, as well as eventual triumphs; nothing more could not be inserted because of the limited space; people interested in other details could ask to read the commentarii in the family archives.
In the late Republic, by the Imagines of Varro and Atticus, are described elogia which contains connection to a portrait, indication of name and offices and enumeration of gesta.
[11] Emperor Augustus adorned his forum, dedicated in 2 BC, with statues of famous Romans of the past bearing inscriptions referring to their offices and deeds.
Each elogium was divided into two parts; the name and the office held were indicated on the plinth of the statue; in the marble cladding of the wall, which lay a little lower, a short outline of the public (mostly military) activity of the celebrated person was carved on larger, framed panels.
It is also extant a series of 24 elogia, each consisting of six lines, named Carmina de viris illustribus Romanis, where, among others, heroes of liberty such as Cato Uticensis and the Caesarian centurion Cassius Scaevus have been celebrated.
