Hosidius Geta
Hosidius Geta (flourished in the late 2nd /early 3rd century C.E.) was a Roman playwright. Tertullian refers to him as his contemporary in the De Prescriptione Haereticorum.
Author
Geta was the author of a tragedy in 462 verses titled Medea. It is the earliest known example of a Vergilian cento, that is, a poem constructed entirely out of lines and half-lines from the works of Virgil. The poet used Virgilian hexameters for the spoken parts of the play, and half-hexameters for the choral parts.
History
Alistair Moffat[1] has mentioned the war of Emperor Claudius against Britain, who came to Camulodunum, modern Colchester, near Thames. The British Army was commanded by princes, Caratacus and Togidubnus, the sons of the late king of the Catuvellauni. Probably on the banks of River Medway, near Rochester in Kent, the decisive action in the war was fought. For two days battle raged until it was turned by the bravery of the tribune, Hosidius Geta, and his men. The British retreated to theline of the Thames.
Battle of the Medway
The Battle of the Medway took place in 43 AD, probably on the River Medway in the lands of the Iron Age tribe of the Cantiaci, now the English county of Kent. Other locations for the battle have been suggested but are less likely. This was an early battle in the Claudian invasion of Britain, led by Aulus Plautius. On the news of the Roman landing, the British tribes united to fight them under the command of Togodumnus and his brother Caratacus of the Catuvellauni tribe. After losing two initial skirmishes in eastern Kent, the natives gathered on the banks of a river further west to face the invaders.[2]
At the same time, the Romans received the surrender of the Dobunni tribe in western Britain. The Dobunni were subjects of the Catuvellauni, and this diplomatic gain was probably a blow to native morale and manpower.
External links
Bibliography
- Text edited by R. Lamacchia, Medea. Cento Vergilianus (Teubner, 1981)
- Text, Translation, and Commentary by Maria Teresa Galli [Latin-Italian with English Summaries]. Vertumnus. Berliner Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie und zu ihren Nachbargebieten, vol. 10, Göttingen: Edition Ruprecht 2017, ISBN 978-3-8469-0121-2
- Scott C. McGill, "Tragic Vergil: rewriting Vergil as a tragedy in the Cento « Medea »," Classical World 95 (2001–2002) 143-161.
- N. Dane, "The Medea of Hosidius Geta," Classical Journal 46 (1950) 75-78.
- Giovanni Salanitro, "Osidio Geta e la poesia centonaria," ANRW 2.34.3: 2314-2360.
- Philip Hardie, "Polyphony or Babel? Hosidius Geta's Medea and the poetics of the cento," in Simon Swain, Stephen Harrison and Jas Elsner (eds), Severan culture (Cambridge, CUP, 2007).