Priscian

Priscian, whose full name was Priscianus Caesariensis, was a grammarian who flourished around AD 500 and taught Latin at Constantinople in the early sixth century; born in Caesarea (modern Cherchell, Algeria), he was probably of Greek descent. He is renowned for writing the Institutes of Grammar, an eighteen-book treatise that became the standard textbook for the study of Latin throughout the Middle Ages, with its first sixteen books addressing sounds and word formation and its final two devoted to syntax, a structure that shaped grammatical study for centuries. In illustrating his grammatical rules Priscian quoted extensively from classical authors such as Virgil, Cicero and Terence, preserving numerous literary fragments that would otherwise have been lost, and his work later influenced the development of speculative grammar and theories of universal grammar.