The biography of Aquila Romanus is almost unknown. Very few personal data can be gathered from his work: among these, the dialogical nature of the proem and other parts in which he turns to an adulescens acerrimo ingenio, hint at the figure of a teacher of rhetoric who writes a manual for his pupil, probably a scion of a noble family considering that he was in a position to ask his teacher a treaty intended, at least in fiction, for private use. It is hypothesised that the cognomen Romanus served to distinguish him from other Greek Ἀκύλας flourished in the Imperial Age, known from Philostrat. vit.soph. 2, 11 and from the Syrianus’ comments on the Περίστάσεων by Hermogenes (Syrian. in Hermog.Stat., 1, 4 ff.; 2, 16 ff.). It seems difficult, however, to accept the identification proposed by Sallmann with Antoninus Aquila, the teacher of rhetoric in economic difficulties recommended to Aufidius Victorinus from his father-in-law Fronto in ep. ad amic. 1, 7, (dating back to 162 and 165 AD), a profile that poorly fits with that emerging from the preface (Elice) of an authoritative teacher sought after by the most illustrious families. The only certain information is that Aquila Romanus constitutes one of the primary sources for Martianus Capella, who generously draws on the De figuris in the writing of Book V of Nuptiae. For this reason, the work must have been written no later than the middle of the fourth century AD, though the absence of historical references and the technical nature of the content and the language does not allow the identification of a particular historical or geographical context. [A. Borgna; trad. M. Formentelli]