the author of a geographical compendium.
We possess no information with regard to the personal history of Solinus, nor have we any evidence, internal or external, to determine the country to which he belonged. The epithet Grammaticus, attached to his name in the best MSS., seems to point out the profession which he followed, while the affectation, obscurity, and stiffness which characterise his style would lead us to infer that Latin was not his native tongue. The era at which he flourished is in like manner doubtful, but it is clear that he wrote before the seat of empire was transferred to Constantinople, since when speaking of Byzantium he could not have passed over an event so remarkable. He is quoted by St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and seems to have been frequently consulted by Ammianus Marcellinus, all of whom belong to the latter end of the fourth century. Forty years afterwards he is referred to as an established authority by Priscian; he is named by Servius, and we find traces of his productions in the Saturnalia of Macrobius. Some lovers of paradox have endeavoured to maintain that he lived in the Angustan age, a supposition at once overturned by the fact that he speaks of the emperors Caius, Claudius and Vespasian, of Suetonius Paulinus, and of the destruction of Jerusalem (100.35); the kindred hypothesis that he is the original, and Pliny the plagiarist, can be overturned with equal facility, for several passages have been adduced by Salmasius (Proleg. ad Solin.), in some of which the words of Pliny have been misunderstood and misrepresented by his compiler, and in others slightly modified, so as to suit the altered circumstance of a later period. On the whole, it is probable, from the terms which he employs when mentioning the Persian empire, that he must be assigned to an epoch subsequent to the reign of Alexander Severus, under whom the line of the Arsacidae became extinct, and the dominion of Central Asia passed from the hands of the Parthians; and hence the opinion of Dodwell, who makes him contemporary with Censorinus (A. D. 238), is perhaps not far from the truth.
[W.R]