Cincius, whose praenomen was likely Lucius and whose cognomen goes unrecorded, was an antiquarian writer probably during the time of Augustus. He is frequently confused with the annalist Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who fought in the Second Punic War, and some scholars still maintain that Cincius Alimentus was also the antiquarian.
None of the works of Cincius is extant, but he is cited by Livy, Festus, and others. The several works attributed to a Cincius have been assigned to one or the other of these two writers by scholars whose criteria for distinguishing them produce varying results. The authorship of the book De fastis ("On the Fasti"), for instance, has been attributed to either one. T.P. Wiseman finds it likely that Cincius wrote "a Pausanias-like guide to the antiquities of the Capitol (if not the whole city)," including a collection of old inscriptions, and makes a jurist of him as well with a work De officio iurisconsulti.
References
- T.P. Wiseman, Clio's Cosmetics (Bristol Phoenix Press, 2003, originally published 1979 by Leicester University Press), p. 45; but this is based on a reference in Macrobius (Saturnalia 1.12.12) to a L. Cincius (Cingius in some editions) who wrote a book De fastis also sometimes attributed to the annalist Lucius Cincius Alimentus, particularly since John Lydus gives the title in Greek and Alimentus wrote in Greek.
- Gian Biagio Conte, Latin Literature: A History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994, originally published 1987 in Italian), p. 70.
- In his classic history of Latin literature, Teuffel distinguishes the two, as in the 1891 English translation. So too Wiseman, Clio's Cosmetics, p. 15, note 39.
- J.G.F. Powell, "Dialogues and Treatises," in A Companion to Latin Literature, edited by Stephen Harrison (Blackwell, 2005), p. 229 online.
- Wiseman, Clio's Cosmetics, pp. 45–46.
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