The Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium by Gaius Julius Solinus: A Roman Geography for a Changing World

Abstract

The Collectanea Rerum Memorabilium is a collection of wondrous facts from various areas of natural science presented within the geographical framework of a description of the known world. Little is known of its author Gaius Julius Solinus, possibly a grammaticus who lived between the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth century AD. Despite being today largely neglected within the field of Latin literature, the text played a significant role in the transmission of classical geographical and scientific knowledge to Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Since the publication of Theodor Mommsen’s critical edition of the text in the late 19th century, studies on Solinus’ work have large..