Priscianus

• A celebrated grammarian in the time of the emperor Justinian.—
• II Theodorus Priscianus, a physician in the time of the emperors Gratian and Valentinian II.

(1) A Latin grammarian of Caesarea, in Mauritania, who lived, at the beginning of the sixth century A.D., as a teacher of the Latin language in Constantinople. He there compiled, in addition to a number of smaller grammatical works, his Institutiones Grammaticae in eighteen books, the fullest and completest systematic Latin grammar which has come down to us. This work, which is of great importance owing to its ample quotations from ancient literature, was for a long time, in the Middle Ages, the school-book in ordinary use in the shape of an epitome by Rabanus Maurus, and formed the foundation for the earlier treatises on Latin grammar in modern times. We also possess an insipid panegyrical poem written by Priscian on the emperor Anastasius, a translation of the Cosmography of the geographer Dionysius, in hexameter verse, besides a grammatical catechism on twelve lines of the Aeneid for school use, a treatise on accent, a treatise on declension, a treatise on symbols for coins and weights, a treatise on the metres of Terence, a translation of the Προγυμνάσματα (Praeexercitamenta) of Hermogenes, a poem De Sideribus, and two epigrams. The best editions of Priscianus are those of Krehl (Leipzig, 1819-20) in 2 vols. and Keil in his Grammatici Latini (1855). (See grammatica.)

(2) A physician, who lived in the fifth century, named Theodōrus Prisciānus, has left us a Medicina Praesentanea (a book of rapid curatives) in five books.

(3) Lydus, a Neo-Platonic philosopher in the reign of Justinian. He wrote a paraphrase and commentary on the physics of Theophrastus (Metaphrasis in Theophrastum), and Solutiones to certain philosophic questions. His remains are edited by Bywater (1886).