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Apocolocyntosis
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Apocolocyntosis

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Also known as Pumpkinification, Pumpkinification of the Divine Claudius, Sen. Apoc.

thumb|300px|Apocolocyntosis, from a 9th-century manuscript of the Abbey library of Saint Gall. The Apocolocyntosis (divi) Claudii, literally Pumpkinification/Gourdification of (the Divine) Claudius, is a satire on the Roman emperor Claudius (), which, according to Cassius Dio, was written by Seneca the Younger. A partly extant Menippean satire, an anonymous work called Ludus de morte Divi Claudii ("Play on the Death of the Divine Claudius") in its surviving manuscripts, may or may not be identical to the text mentioned by Cassius Dio. "Apocolocyntosis" is a word play on "apotheosis", the proce

Book · Open Library

Author
Seneca the Younger
First published
1729
Editions
30
Subjects
Humor, Latin Satire, Translations into Italian, Translations into English, Translations into German, Problems, exercises, Translations into Russian, Readers

via Open Library

~5 min read

Encyclopedic overview

6 sections
Contents
  • Authorship
  • Plot
  • Translations
  • See also
  • Notes
  • References

thumb|300px|Apocolocyntosis, from a 9th-century manuscript of the Abbey library of Saint Gall. The Apocolocyntosis (divi) Claudii, literally Pumpkinification/Gourdification of (the Divine) Claudius, is a satire on the Roman emperor Claudius (), which, according to Cassius Dio, was written by Seneca the Younger. A partly extant Menippean satire, an anonymous work called Ludus de morte Divi Claudii ("Play on the Death of the Divine Claudius") in its surviving manuscripts, may or may not be identical to the text mentioned by Cassius Dio. "Apocolocyntosis" is a word play on "apotheosis", the process by which dead Roman emperors were recognized as gods.

==Authorship== thumb|Citrullus colocynthis|Wild gourd, the titular 'pumpkin' The Ludus de morte Divi Claudii is one of only two examples of a Menippean satire from the classical era that have survived, the other being the Satyricon, which was probably written by Petronius. Gilbert Bagnani is among the scholars who also attribute the Ludus text to Petronius. thumb|The official view: cameo with the Apotheosis of [[Claudius, c. 54 AD]]

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Apocolocyntosis” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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