Quintus Remmius Palaemon or Quintus Rhemnius Fannius Palaemon was a Roman grammarian and a native of Vicentia. He lived during the reigns of Emperors Tiberius and Claudius.

Life <span class="anchor" id="Biography"></span><span class="anchor" id="History"></span>

From Suetonius, we learn that he was originally a slave who obtained his freedom and taught grammar at Rome. Suetonius preserves several anecdotes of his profligate and arrogant character. a system of grammar much used in his own time and largely drawn upon by later grammarians, contained rules for correct diction, illustrative quotations and discussed barbarisms and solecisms. An extant Ars grammatica (discovered by Jovianus Pontanus in the 15th century) and other unimportant treatises on similar subjects have been wrongly ascribed to him. In this poem, first edited in 1528, the term gramma is used for a weight equal to two oboli. (Two oboli—a diobol—corresponds to 1/24th of a Roman ounce or about 1.14 grams.) This eventually led to the adoption of the term gram as a unit of weight (poids, later of mass) by the French National Convention in 1795.

References

Citation

Bibliography

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  • Bibliography on Palaemon at Corpus Grammaticorum Latinorum
  • Suetonius's De Grammaticis in English translation