Quintus Remmius Palaemon[1] or Quintus Rhemnius Fannius Palaemon[2] was a Roman grammarian and a native of Vicentia. He lived during the reigns of Emperors Tiberius and Claudius.
His lost Ars,[5] a system of grammar much used in his own time and largely drawn upon by later grammarians, contained rules for correct diction, illustrative quotations and discussed barbarisms and solecisms.[4] [6] An extant Ars grammatica (discovered by Jovianus Pontanus in the 15th century) and other unimportant treatises on similar subjects have been wrongly ascribed to him.[4]
Among Palaemon's ascribed works is a Song on Weights and Measures (Latin: Carmen de Ponderibus et Mensuris)[7] [2] now dated to between the late 4th and early 6th centuries.[8] [9] In this poem, first edited in 1528,[10] the term gramma is used for a weight equal to two oboli.[11] (Two oboli—a diobol—corresponds to 1/24th of a Roman ounce or about 1.14 grams.) This eventually led to the adoption of the term gram as a unit of weight (poids, later of mass) by the French National Convention in 1795.