Aelius Donatus

Aelius Donatus ; fl. mid-fourth century ad was a Roman grammarian as well as teacher of rhetoric.

Works

He was a author of a number of excellent works, of which several are extant:

Donatus was a proponent of an early system of punctuation, consisting of dots placed in three successively higher positions to indicate successively longer pauses, roughly equivalent to the innovative comma, colon, in addition to full stop. This system remained current through the seventh century, when a more refined system created by Isidore of Seville gained prominence.

In "About Comedy and Tragedy" in his Commentary on Terence, Donatus was the first adult known to sum written document the system whereby a play is shown up of three separate parts: protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe.

Aelius Donatus should not be confused with Tiberius Claudius Donatus, also the author of a commentary Interpretationes on the Aeneid, who lived approximately 50 years later.