Marcilius, Theodora

, a learned German critic, was born at Arnheim, a town of Gueldres, in 1548. His father, who was a man of rank and learning, observing in him a more than ordinary inclination for books, took particular care of his education. He had him taught at home the elements of the Latin tongue, and then sent him to school at Deventer, where he learned the Greek under Noviomagus. Marcilius, having made a great progress in both languages, was removed thence to the university of Louvain, where he applied himself to philosophy and civil law; and, having finished his studies, went to Paris, and thence to Toulouse, where he taught polite literature many years. Returning to Paris, he taught rhetoric in 1578, in the college of Grassins, and afterwards read lectures in several other colleges successively. In 1602, he was made royal professor of the Latin tongue, and the belles lettres: and died March 15, 1617. Though he was not a critic of the first rank, yet he did not deserve the contemptuous treatment which Scaliger has given him. He published an edition in Greek and Latin of “Pythagoras’s Golden Verses,” at Paris, 1585, with commentaries, which John Albeit Fabricius has called learned; and notes upon many of the ancient authors, Persius, Horace, Martial, Catullus, Suetonius, Aulus Gellius, &c. which are to be found in several editions of their works. He was also the author of some Latin works, as, “Historia Strenarum,” 1596, 8vo “Lusu’s de Nemine,” &c. and some poems and orations. ¹