He was the author of various
rhetorical works in both
Greek and
Latin, such as . and a commentary on the
Categories of Aristotle, () whose philosophy he attacked along with his fellow Stoic Athenodorus. He also wrote a work called
On Properties ().
Compendium of Greek Theology His one major surviving work, the philosophical treatise, ("Compendium of Greek Theology") is a manual of "popular mythology as expounded in the etymological and symbolical interpretations of the Stoics". This early example of a Roman educational treatise, provided an account of
Greek mythology on the bases of highly elaborated
etymological readings. Cornutus sought to recover the earliest beliefs that primitive people had about the world by examining the various names and titles of the gods. The result, to modern eyes, is often bizarre, with many forced etymologies, as can be seen from the opening paragraph, where Cornutus describes Heaven (): The Heaven [], my boy, encompasses round about the earth and the sea and everything both on the earth and the sea. On this account it has acquired its appellation, since it is an "upper limit" [] of all things and "marks of the bounds" [] of nature. Some say, however, that it is called Heaven [] from its "looking after" [] or "tending to" [] things, that is, from its guarding them, from which also "doorkeeper" [] and "watching carefully" [] are named. Still others derive its etymology from its "being seen above" []. Together with everything it encompasses, it is called the "world" [] from its being "so beautifully ordered" [] The book continues in a similar vein, proceeding from such gods as
Zeus,
Hera,
Cronus, and
Poseidon, to the
Furies,
Fates,
Muses, and
Graces. The work is pervaded throughout with a strong undercurrent of Stoic Physics. We are told that the world has a soul that preserves it called Zeus who dwells in Heaven whose substance is fiery. Zeus is the power that pervades everything, and who assigns Fate to each person. The gods have sent us Reason (), which does not work evil, but which is part of the divine Reason of the universe: "
Ocean" is the that "glides swiftly" and changes continuously, whereas
Tethys is the stability of the qualities. For from their blending or mixing come about those things that exist; and nothing would exist if either one unmixed gained the upper hand over the other.
Spurious works Scholia to Persius are also attributed to Annaeus Cornutus; the latter, however, are of much later date, and are assigned by Jahn to the
Carolingian period. The so-called
Disticha Cornuti belong to the
Late Middle Ages. ==Editions==