Lucius Ateius Praetextatus (surnamed "Philologus"—Φιλόλογος), (died c. 29 BC) was a Roman freedman, rhetorician, and grammarian.
He was brought to Rome as a prisoner by Marcus Ateius following the sack of Athens in 86 BC.
[1] He wrote that he was a pupil of Marcus Antonius Gnipho,[2] He gave himself the epithet "philogus" (lover of words), "because like Eratosthenes, who was first to lay claim to that surname, he regarded himself as a man of wide and varied learning.
He provided Sallust with an epitome (breviarium rerum omnnium Romanarum) from which he could choose material for his history, and Asinius Pollio with rules for writing (praeceptis de ratione scribendi).
Asinius Pollio writes that Sallust made excessive use of archaisms "abetted in this by a certain Ateius, when I was a boy a Latin grammarian and later a critic and teacher of declamation, in short a self-styled ‘Philologus.’”[2] All of Ateius Praetextatus' work has been lost, except for brief quotations in later authors.