Composed during the nights of an Attic winter, the sole surviving work of Aulus Gellius, the second century Latin author and grammarian, is an intriguing compendium of notes covering philosophy, history, biography and questions of grammar. ‘Attic Nights’ offers a valuable insight into the works of lost authors and the manners and occupations of Roman society. Delphi’s Ancient Classics series provides eReaders with the wisdom of the Classical world, with both English translations an...

Long a source for quotations, fragments, and factoids, the Noctes Atticae of Aulus Gellius offers hundreds of brief but vivid glimpses of Roman intellectual life. In this book Joseph Howley demonstrates how the work may be read as a literary text in its own right, and discusses the rich evidence it provides for the ancient history of reading, thought, and intellectual culture. He argues that Gellius is in close conversation with predecessors both Greek and Latin, such as Plutarch and Pliny...

Most classists have viewed Aulus Gellius' second-century text, the Noctes Atticae, as little more than a haphazard collection of short essays and excerpts by an amateur scholar. Often called a "miscellany," the Noctes Atticae collects vast amounts of otherwise lost ancient literature and records Gellius' experience of reading them. While the depictions of his scholarly activity have led some scholars to see in Gellius a kindred spirit--a Classicist avant la lettre