L
L. Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius of Sicca Veneria (ca 270 – 315 CE?)
Before his conversion to Christianity (ca 300 CE), Lactantius composed an extant Latin
poem Phoenix, describing the home of the bird at the eastern edge of the flat Earth
(1–30), and her life and singing for Apollo (31–58). The phoenix lives a millennium, then
flies to a Syrian palm (phoenix), where she builds a nest of incense, on which she bursts
into flame, from the ashes of which a worm forms and becomes an egg, out of which
hatches a new phoenix (59–122). Lactantius concludes with an ekphrasis of the phoenix
(123–170). After his conversion, he composed among others a work on the construction
of the human body, De Opificio Dei, arguing from function to design. He argued in his
systematic theology, Divine Institutes 3.24, that the spherical-Earth theory was absurd and
ill-founded.
Ed.: E. Rapisarda, Il carme “De ave phoenice” di Lattanzio (1959); M.F. McDonald, trans., Lactantius: Minor
Wo r k s (1965) 213–220.
P.A. Roots, “The De opificio dei. The workmanship of God and Lactantius,” CQ 37 (1987) 466–486;
DPA 4 (2005) 65–71, Chr. Ingremeau.
PTK
L ⇒ A
L ⇒ L
L ⇒ O L
Laïs (100 BCE – 77 CE)
Female physician listed (after S and before E) as a foreign authority on
drugs obtained from animals (P 1.ind.28). She disagreed with Elephantis regarding the
efficacy of various abortifacients (28.81), but agreed with S regarding treating hudro-
phobia and fevers magically with wool from a black ram (28.82). A relatively common
name from the 5th c. BCE (LGPN).
RE 12.1 (1924) 516 (#4), F.E. Kind; Parker (1997) 145 (#44)
GLIM