FESTUS, SEXTUS POMPEIUS, Roman grammarian, probably flourished in the 2nd century A.D. He made an epitome of the valuable work De verborum significatu (of which only frag ments remain), by M. Verrius Flaccus, a freedman and gramma rian who flourished in the reign of Augustus. Festus gives the ety mology and meaning of every word ; and throws light on the antiq uities of Rome. He made a few alterations, and inserted some critical remarks of his own. Latin words which had long become obsolete were relegated to a separate work (Priscorum verborum cum exemplis), now lost. Festus's epitome exists in only one ms., the Codex Festi Farnesianus at Naples, which contains the second half of the work (M-V) only, and that not in a perfect condition. It has been published in facsimile by Thewrewk de Ponor (1890). At the close of the 8th century Paulus Diaconus abridged the abridgment. From his work and the solitary copy of the original attempts have been made to reconstruct the treatise of Festus.
Of the early editions the best are those of J. Scaliger (1565) and Fulvius Ursinus (1581) ; in modern times, those of C. O. Muller (1839, reprinted 188o) and de Ponor (1889), new edition by W. M. Lindsay (Leipzig, 1913). See J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholar ship, vol. i. (1906) ; L. Havet, "Notes Critiques sur le Texte de F.," (in Bib. de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, 1914; W. M. Lindsay, Ancient Lore in Mediaeval Glossaries (1921) for Festus as a source of the Abolita Glossary.