Antipater, L. Coelius

History, Law and Oratory

Pomponius (Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 2.40) considers him more an orator than a jurist; Cicero, on the other hand, prizes him more as a jurist than as an orator or historian. (De Or. 2.12; de Legg. 1, 2; Brut. 100.26.) He was a contemporary of C. Gracchus (B. C. 123); L. Crassus, the orator, was his pupil. He was the first who endeavoured to impart to Roman history the ornaments of style, and to make it more than a mere chronicle of events, but his diction was rather vehement and high-sounding than elegant and polished. He is not to be confounded with Coelius Sabinus, the Coelius of the Digest. None of his juridical writings have been preserved. He wrote a history of the second Punic war, and composed Annales, which were epitomized by Brutus. (Cic. Att. 13.8.) The history of the second Punic war was perhaps only a part of the Annales. Antipater followed the Greek history of Silenus Calatinus (Cic. de Div. 1.24, 49), and occasionally borrowed from the Origines of Cato Censorius. (Gel. 10.24; Macrob. Saturn. 1.4, extr.) The emperor Hadrian is reported to have preferred him as an historian to Sallust (Spartianus, Hadrian. 100.16); by Valerius Maximus (1.7) he is designated certus Romanae historiae auctor; and he is occasionally quoted by Livy, who sometimes, with respectiful consideration, dissents from his authority. It is manifest, however, from Cicero and Val. Maximus, that he was fond of relating dreams and portents. Orelli (Onomast. Cic.) refers to the dissertations on Antipater by Bavius Ant. Nauta and G. Groen van Prinsterer, inserted in the Annals of the Academy of Leyden for 1821.