In the dedication to the consul ac patricius Julian (who is not securely identified: Ballaira 1989, 81-85) in the prefatory letter of the Ars, Priscian is called Caesariensis, and in numerous incipit and explicit present in the manuscript tradition of his works, he is specified as grammaticus Caesariensis. It is the communis opinio, based on the testimony of the Vita Bernensis (Bern, Burgerbibliothek, AA 90, 29, ff. 4v-6r; GL VIII, CLXVIII-CLXIX) and seemingly confirmed by an attentive examination of vv. 242-247 of Priscian’s panegyric to Anastasius, that his homeland should be identified as Caesarea in Mauretania (Ballaira 1989, 17-19 e 2002, with bibliographical references in n. 26; Baratin 2005). It is difficult to establish with certainty when he lived: he was active in Constantinople under the emperor Anastasius I (491-518), and he was at the peak of his career at the beginning of Justinian’s reign (527-565), when he published the Ars (this is the title of his major work, the Institutiones grammaticae, transmitted in the edition of M. Hertz, GL II e III, 1-377: concerning this, De Nonno 2009). Priscian then continued to teach Latin during the Justinian age, and died in an unspecified year prior to 580. The little information we have regarding his dating derives from the testimonies of Cassiodorus and Paul the Deacon: the latter writes that Priscian was active in Constantinople at the time of Justinian (De gest. Langob. I 25), while the former supplies us with a terminus ante quem for the grammarian’s death, as the title of the twelfth chapter of De orthographia includes the phrase ex Prisciano grammatico, qui nostro tempore Constantinopoli doctor fuit (GL VII 207, 13-14); Priscian must have been dead when Cassiodorus composed the treatise, around the year 580.

Closely retracing the various phases of his life, it can be affirmed that he was forced to leave Africa due to his Catholic faith after the invasion of the inflexibly Arian Vandals. He then took refuge in Constantinople around 480-490, during the period of the Isaurian rule (474-491), whose oppressive actions are recorded in the panegyric De laude Anastasii imperatoris. He studied at Theoctistus’ school, as is mentioned twice in the Ars (GL II 238, 5-7; III 231, 24-25), but it is unclear whether this was when he was still in Africa, or already in Constantinople (Ballaira 1989, 36 tends toward the second hypothesis). Priscian became a Latin teacher at the university in Constantinople, and soon achieved considerable fame. Among his students were Flavius Theodorus, an imperial functionary (memorialis of the scrinium epistularum and adiutor of the quaestor sacri palatii), and Eutiches (on whom, Lomanto 1985), who wrote an Ars de verbo (GL V 447-489). In the Byzantine capital, he was able to acquaint himself with the young Roman senator Quintus Aurelius Memmius Symmachus, the great-grandson of the fourth-century orator and the father-in-law of Severinus Boethius  (ca. 480-524); their meeting, which probaby occurred at the beginning of the sixth century (Ballaira 1989, 41-53) and certainly before 525, the year in which Symmachus died, is recorded by Priscian himself (GL III 405, 6). During that period, the cultural contacts between the educated classes of Ravenna and the Greek world were particularly intense, and the same Symmachus, together with Boethius, promoted a program of cultural reform in the West, now controlled by the Goths, which would have led to a recovery of the Greek language and sources. It is hypothesised (Courcelle 1948², 304-312, Baratin 2005 and 2014) that Priscian’s activity occurred in the context of this cultural reconciliation, as a staunch supporter of the fundamental importance of Greek models for the study of the Latin language. It is unclear whether he had direct access to the works of Boethius, although they were in circulation in his own cultural milieu: a copy of a corpus of the Latin philosopher’s philosophical (logic) writings was commissioned for Flavius Theodorus, the same disciple of Priscian who copied the monumental grammatical work (Pecere 2014).

Lastly, a nod to Priscian’s literary production, proceeding in chronological order. His three earliest texts are dedicated to Symmachus: the De figuris numerorum (commissioned by Symmachus himself: sicut iussisti, GL III 405, 9), the De metris fabularum Terentii and the Praeexercitamina. Later, between 526 and 527 (as is indicated by Theodorus’ subscriptions, present in several manuscripts), he wrote the eighteen books of the Ars. These were designed for teaching Latin to a Greek-speaking public, which aspired to bilinguality as an instrument for entering higher imperial careers (Baratin 2014); they focus on the eight parts of discourse (Books 1-16, considered Priscianus Maior), and syntax (Books 18 and 19, Priscianus Minor). Subsequently, he composed two short works for schools, the Institutio de nomine et pronomine et verbo and the Partitiones duodecim versuum Aeneidos principalium. His panegyric to Anastasius, previously dated to 513 (Chauvot 1977; Ballaira 1989, 21-27; Baratin 2005), is now dated with greater precision to the following year (Ballaira 2009), while Bonnet 2009 suggests that the Periegesis, a translation in 1087 lines of Dionysius’ poem, was composed between the Ars and the Partitiones. [M. Callipo, tr. C. Belanger]