Hosidius Geta

Hosidius Geta (flourished in the late 2nd /early 3rd century) was a Roman playwright. Tertullian refers to him as his contemporary in the De Prescriptione Haereticorum.

Geta was the author of a tragedy in 462 verses titled Medea. It is the earliest known example of a Vergilian cento, that is, a poem constructed entirely out of lines and half-lines from the works of Virgil. The poet used Virgilian hexameters for the spoken parts of the play, and half-hexameters for the choral parts.

Sources

• http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/1374.html

Bibliography

Text edited by R. Lamacchia, Medea. Cento Vergilianus (Teubner, 1981).

• Scott C. McGill, "Tragic Vergil: rewriting Vergil as a tragedy in the Cento « Medea »," Classical World 95 (2001–2002) 143-161.
• N. Dane, "The Medea of Hosidius Geta," Classical Journal 46 (1950) 75-78.
• Giovanni Salanitro, "Osidio Geta e la poesia centonaria," ANRW 2.34.3: 2314-2360.
• Philip Hardie, "Polyphony or Babel? Hosidius Geta's Medea and the poetics of the cento," in Simon Swain, Stephen Harrison and Jas Elsner (eds), Severan culture (Cambridge, CUP, 2007).