Lucius Aelius Stilo Praeconinus


Lucius Aelius Stilo Praeconinus, of Lanuvium, was the earliest known philologist of the Roman Republic. He came from a distinguished family and belonged to the equestrian order.
He was called Stilo because he wrote speeches for others, and Praeconinus from his father's profession. His aristocratic sympathies were so strong that he voluntarily accompanied Caecilius Metellus Numidicus into exile. At Rome he divided his time between teaching and literary work.
His most famous pupils were Varro and Cicero, and amongst his friends was Coelius Antipater, the historian. According to Cicero, who expressed a poor opinion of his powers as an orator, Stilo was a follower of the Stoic school. Only a few fragments of his works remain. He wrote commentaries on the hymns of the Salii, and probably also on the Twelve Tables. He analysed the authenticity of comedies supposedly by Plautus, and recognized 25 as canonical, four more than were allowed by Varro.
It is probable that he was the author of a general glossographical work, dealing with literary, historical and antiquarian questions. The rhetorical treatise Ad Herennium was attributed to him by some scholars of the early 20th century.

Ancient sources

  • Cicero, Brutus, 205–207, De legibus, ii.23, 59
  • Suetonius, De grammaticis, 2
  • Gellius iii. 3, I.12
  • Quintilian, Inst. orat., x, I, 99

    19th-century scholarship

  • Jan Adolf Karel van Heusde Dissertatio de Aelio Stilone, Ciceronis in Rhetoricis magistro, Rhetoricorum ad Herennium, ut videtur auctore
  • Ferdinand Mentz De Lucio Aelio Stilone
  • Theodor Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. iv, ch. 12, 13
  • J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship
  • Martin Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Literatur, vol. i.
  • Teuffel, History of Roman Literature, p. 148.
Category:150s BC births
Category:74 BC deaths
Category:People from Lanuvio
Stilo Praeconinus, Lucius
Category:2nd-century BC Romans
Category:1st-century BC Romans
Category:1st-century BC writers
Category:Ancient Roman exiles
Category:Ancient Roman antiquarians
Category:Philologists
Category:Grammarians of Latin
Category:Ancient Roman rhetoricians
Category:Ancient linguists
Category:Literary critics