Lucius Annaeus Cornutus was a Stoic philosopher who lived and taught in Rome during the middle of the first century CE. He was a freedman of the influential Annaeus family, which suggests he may have originally come from a province outside Italy. Cornutus is historically significant as the teacher of the Roman satirical poet Persius and was also connected to the poet Lucan. He lived under the emperors Claudius and Nero. Ancient accounts note that he was exiled by Nero near the end of his reign, reportedly for a veiled criticism of the emperor's literary ambitions, illustrating the risks intellectuals faced at the time.

His primary importance rests on a single surviving work, the Compendium of Greek Theology. This text is a handbook of Stoic allegorical interpretation, explaining traditional Greek myths as symbolic stories about the natural world and cosmic order, often through analyzing the meanings of divine names. According to modern scholars, this work is a key example of how Stoicism engaged with cultural and religious traditions. Cornutus is known to have written other works, including commentaries, tragedies, and treatises on rhetoric and Virgil, but these are now lost. His role as a teacher and his surviving Compendium show a Stoic philosopher deeply involved in literary criticism and education, bridging philosophy and the study of language and myth.