Asconius Pedianus

Who was Asconius Pedianus?

Quintus Asconius Pedianus was a Roman historian.

In his later years he resided in Rome, and there he died, after having been blind for twelve years, at the age of eighty-five. During the reigns of Claudius and Nero he compiled for his sons, from various sources—e.g. the Gazette, shorthand reports or skeletons of Cicero's unpublished speeches, Tiro's life of Cicero, speeches and letters of Cicero's contemporaries, various historical writers, e.g. Varro, Atticus, Antias, Tuditanus and Fenestella -- historical commentaries on Cicero's speeches, of which only five, viz, in Pisonem, pro Scauro, pro Milone, pro Cornelio and In Toga Candida, in a very mutilated edition, are preserved, under the modern title Q. Asconii Pediani Orationvm Ciceronis qvinqve enarratio.

In a note upon the speech pro Scauro, he speaks of Longus Caecina as still living, while his words imply that Claudius was not alive. This statement, therefore, must have been written between AD 54 and 57. These valuable notes, written in good Latin, relate chiefly to historical and antiquarian matters. A commentary, of superior Latinity and mainly of a grammatical character, on Cicero's Verrine orations, was transmitted alongside the commentaries of Asconius but is regarded as a fourth or fifth century work.