Q. Asconius Pedianus, who holds the first place among the ancient commentators of Cicero,
seems to have been born a year or two before the commencement of the Christian era, and there
is some reason to believe that he was a native of Padua. It appears from a casual expression
in his notes on the speech for Scaurus, that these were written after the consulship of Largus
Caecina and Claudius, that is, after A. D. 42. We learn from the
Eusebian chronicle that he became blind in his seventy-third year, during the reign of
Vespasian, and that he attained to the age of eighty-five. The supposition that there were two
Asconii, the one the companion of Virgil and the expounder of Cicero, the other an historian
who flourished at a later epoch, is in opposition to the clear testimony of antiquity, which
recognises one only.
Lost works
He wrote a work, now lost, on the life of Sallust; and another, which has likewise
perished, against the censurers of Virgil, of which Donatus and other grammarians have
availed themselves in their illustrations of that poet; but there is no ground for ascribing
to him the tract entitled
Origo gentis Romanae, more commonly,
but with as little foundation, assigned to Aurelius Victor.
Commentary on the speeches of Cicero
But far more important and valuable than the above was his work on the speeches of Cicero;
and fragments of commentaries, bearing his name, are still extant, on the
Divinatio, the first two speeches against Verres and a portion of the
third, the speeches for Cornelius (i. ii.), the speech
In toga candida, for
Scaurus, against Piso, and for Milo. The remarks which were drawn up for the instruction
of his sons (Comm. in Milon. 14) are conveyed in very pure language, and
refer chiefly to points of history and antiquities, great pains being bestowed on the
illustration of those constitutional forms of the senate, the popular assemblies, and the
courts of justice, which were fast falling into oblivion under the empire. This character,
however, does not apply to the notes on the Verrine orations, which are of a much more
grammatical cast, and exhibit not unfrequently traces of a declining Latinity. Hence, after a
very rigid and minute examination, the most able modern critics have decided that these last
are not from the pen of Asconius, but must be attributed to some grammarian of a much later
date, one who may have been the contemporary or successor of Servius or Donatus. It is
impossible here to analyse the reasoning by which this conclusion has been satisfactorily
established, but those who wish for full information will find everything they can desire in
the excellent treatise of Madvig. (De Asconii Pediani, &c.
Commentariis, Hafiniae, 1828, 8vo.)
The history of the preservation of the book is curious. Poggio Bracciolini, the renowned
Florentine, when attending the council of Constance in the year 1416, discovered a manuscript
of Asconius in the monastery of St. Gall. This MS. was transcribed by him, and about the same
time by Bartolomeo di Montepulciano, and by Sozomen, a canon of Pistoia. Thus three copies
were taken, and these are still in existence, but the original has long since disappeared.
All the MSS. employed by the editors of Asconius seem to have been derived from the
transcript of Poggio exclasively, and their discrepancies arise solely from the conjectural
emendations which have been introduced from time to time for the purpose of correcting the
numerous corruptions and supplying the frequently recurring blanks. Poggio has left no
description of the archetype, but it evidently must have been in bad order, from the number
of small gaps occasioned probably by edges or corners having been torn off, or words rendered
illegible by damp. Indeed the account given of the place where the monks had deposited their
literary treasures is sufficient to account fully for such imperfections, for it is
represented to have been " a most foul and dark dungeon at the bottom of a tower, into which
not even criminals convicted of capital offences would have been thrust down."
Editions
The first edition of Asconius was taken directly from the transcript of Poggio, and
was published at Venice in 1477, along with sundry essays and dissertations on the speeches
of Cicero. The work was frequently reprinted in the early part of the sixteenth
century, and numerous editions have appeared from time to time, either separately or attached
to the orations themselves; but, notwithstanding the labours of many excellent scholars, the
text is usually exhibited in a very corrupt and interpolated form. By far the best is
that which is to be found in the fifth volume of Cicero's works as edited by Orelli and
Baiter; but many improvements might yet be made if the three original transcripts
were to be carefully collated, instead of reproducing mere copies of copies which have been
disfigured by the carelessness or presumption of successive scribes.