writer Copy link Outline 1. scriptor2. scrība (a public w., clerk)3. auctor (author) • writer: 1. scriptor: Diphilus Crassus' w. (secretary) and reader, Diphilus Crassi scriptor et lector, Cic. de Or. 1, 30, 136: the w.s and teachers on the liberal arts must be read, bonarum artium scriptores et doctores legendi, ibid. 1, 34, 158: a most elegant and polished w., venustissimus scriptor et politissimus, id. Or. 9, 29. 2. scrība (a public w., clerk): these w.s are an honourable class, for to their integrity the public accounts are entrusted, scribarum ordo est honestus, quod eorum hominum fidei tabellae publicae committuntur, Cic. Verr. 3, 79, 183: v. clerk, copyist. 3. auctor (author): the w. of the Alexandrine war is uncertain, Belli Alexandrini incertus auctor est, Suet. Caes. 56: w.s whom I am now often reading, auctores quos nunc lectito, Cic. Att. 12, 18, 1. The writer of a particular document is perhaps more often expressed by a periphrasis with the verb: the w. of this letter, qui hanc epistolam scripsit, conscripsit.
WRITER Copy link • WRITEROne who writes, scribens: qui scribit: qui litteras scribit. A good writer, qui eleganti or nitida, manu litteras scribit (after Plaut., Pseud., 1, 1, 28). the writer of a letter, qui litteras, epistolam scripsit, exaravit (after Cic.). One whose profession or office it is to write, scriba; also, (post-Augustan), a manu servus; ab epistolis; amanuensis (secretary, amanuensis); librarius (a transcriber of books). Author of a book, scriptor: qui librum scripsit or conscripsit (the actual writer of it): auctor (only so far as he is an authority for using a particular style, for a particular statement, etc.; hence not without a genitive, unless this can easily be supplied by the context †): Roman writers, Romani scriptores (who have written in Latin); rerum Romanarum auctores (Latin historians, who are our authorities for Roman history); Latinitatis auctores (writers of classical Latinity). Writers (as a class), without genitive, qui libros scribunt or conscribunt.