DONATE (Donatus)

Donat; Donatus, OK. IV in the middle. n. e., a Roman grammarian. Teacher Jerome, author of Grammar for Beginners Minor grammar (Ars minor), which is in the form of questions and answers is 8 parts of speech, grammar and large, for those interested, which addresses the problem of style and rhetoric. Both grammar quickly gained popularity, already Servius wrote to them a comment in the Middle Ages they were widely used as textbooks. D. is also the author comments on Terence and Virgil. Commentary on Terence (preserved with later insertions) is an example egzegeticheskogo report, typical of the grammarians of antiquity. He describes the life of Terence, the introduction to the theory of comedy as a literary form, as well as the introduction and explanation to 5 comedies (comments to one of the comedies, lost). The commentary to Virgil survived only: preface, which relies heavily on Suetonius, the biography of the poet and the introduction to the bucolic. Commentaries D. among others, used Jerome, Servius, Pristsian.