Aelius Donatus was a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 grammarian and teacher of rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

. The only fact known regarding his life is that he was the tutor of St. Jerome

Jerome

Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...

.

He was the author of a number of professional works, of which several are still extant:

• A partly incomplete commentary on the playwright Terence
  Terence
  Publius Terentius Afer , better known in English as Terence, was a playwright of the Roman Republic, of North African descent. His comedies were performed for the first time around 170–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on,...
  
   compiled from other commentaries, but probably not in its original form;

• His Life of Virgil
  Virgil
  Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
  
  is thought to be based on a lost Vita by Suetonius, together with the preface and introduction of his commentary on Virgil's works. A greatly expanded version of Servius' commentary exists, however, which is supplemented with frequent and extensive extracts from what is thought to be Donatus' commentary on Virgil.
• His Ars grammatica
  Ars grammatica
  An Ars grammatica is a generic or proper title for surveys of Latin Grammar.Extant works known as Ars grammatica have been written by*Aelius Donatus*Maurus Servius Honoratus*Diomedes Grammaticus*Charisius*Pseudo-Remmius Palaemon...
  
  , especially the section on the eight parts of speech
  Lexical category
  In grammar, a part of speech is a linguistic category of words , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphological behaviour of the lexical item in question. Common linguistic categories include noun and verb, among others...
  
  , though possessing little claim to originality, and evidently based on the same authorities which were used by the grammarians Charisius
  Charisius
  Flavius Sosipater Charisius was a Latin grammarian.He was probably an African by birth, summoned to Constantinople to take the place of Euanthius, a learned commentator on Terence...
  
   and Diomedes
  Diomedes Grammaticus
  Diomedes Grammaticus was a Latin grammarian who probably lived in the late 4th century AD. He wrote a grammatical treatise, known either as De Oratione et Partibus Orationis et Vario Genere Metrorum libri III or Ars grammatica in three books, dedicated to a certain Athanasius. Since he is...
  
  , attained such popularity as a schoolbook that, in the Middle Ages
  Middle Ages
  The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
  
  , he became the eponym
  Eponym
  An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...
  
   for a rudimentary treatise of any sort, called a donet. When books came to be printed in the 15th century, editions of the little book were multiplied to an enormous extent. It is also the only purely textual work to be printed in blockbook form (cut like a woodcut, not using movable type
  Movable type
  Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
  
  ). It is in the form of an Ars Minor, which only treats of the parts of speech, and an Ars Major, which deals with grammar in general at greater length.

Donatus was a proponent of an early system of punctuation

Punctuation

Punctuation marks are symbols that indicate the structure and organization of written language, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.In written English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences...

, consisting of dots placed in three successively higher positions to indicate successively longer pauses, roughly equivalent to the modern comma

Comma

A comma is a type of punctuation mark . The word comes from the Greek komma , which means something cut off or a short clause.Comma may also refer to:* Comma , a type of interval in music theory...

, colon

Colon (punctuation)

The colon is a punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line.-Usage:A colon informs the reader that what follows the mark proves, explains, or lists elements of what preceded the mark....

, and full stop

Full stop

A full stop is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of sentences. In American English, the term used for this punctuation is period. In the 21st century, it is often also called a dot by young people...

. This system remained current through the seventh century, when a more refined system due to Isidore of Seville

Isidore of Seville

Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...

 gained prominence.

Donatus invented the system whereby a play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 is made up of three separate parts: protasis

Protasis

In drama, a protasis is the introductory part of a play, usually its first act. The term was coined by the fourth-century Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. He defined a play as being made up of three separate parts, the other two being epitasis and catastrophe. In modern dramatic theory the term...

, epitasis

Epitasis

In Classical drama, the epitasis is the main action of a play, in which the trials and tribulations of the main character increase and build toward a climax and dénouement. It was coined by the fourth-century Roman grammarian Aelius Donatus. He defined a play as being made up of three separate...

, and catastasis

Catastasis

In classical tragedies, the catastasis is the third part of an ancient drama, in which the intrigue or action that was initiated in the epitasis, is supported and heightened, until ready to be unravelled in the catastrophe...

.

Aelius Donatus should not be confused with Tiberius Claudius Donatus

Tiberius Claudius Donatus

Tiberius Claudius Donatus was a Roman Latin grammarian of whom a single work is known, the Interpretationes Vergilianae, a commentary to Virgil. He is thought to have florished in the 430s. His work, rediscovered in 1438, proved popular in the early modern age obtaining 55 editions between 1488...

, also the author of a commentary (Interpretationes) on the Aeneid

Aeneid

The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

, who lived about fifty years later.

External links

• The Ars Minor online
• The Ars Major online
• Latin texts of some of Aelius Donatus, including the Ars Minor and all the parts of the Ars Major
• The commentary on Terence online
• Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum: complete texts and full bibliography