taste of Horace; but this was no doubt a very favourable example of his style. Aulus Gellius has almost a whole chapter of strange compound words, in which Laberius appears to have allowed himself boundless licence; and which are exactly the words, which disappear among, and seem to have been proscribed by, the Augustan Poets. Macrob. Saturn. II. vii. 4. Aulus Gellius, xvi. 7.

C. LUCILIUS.-Sat. 1. iv. 6; I. x.; 11. i. 17. Was born, according to S. Hieronymus, u. c. 605, and died aged fortysix, u. c. 651. Notwithstanding the distinctness of this statement, and the ingenuity with which many writers have attempted to explain it, it appears to me utterly irreconcilable with facts. Lucilius accompanied his patron, L. Scipio Africanus Emilianus, to the war of Numantia, A. U. 620, then only fifteen years old. Precedents are alleged for this abuse, as to the ordinary service, but Lucilius is said to have served as eques at that premature age.

He is also said to have been distinguished as forming part of the familiar society of Scipio and Lælius, and as having acquired fame as a satirist; yet Scipio died in the year 625, when, by the date in Hieronymus, Lucilius was but twenty. The expression of Horace, who calls him Senex, may refer to the legal distinction of old age, which was allowed at 46, or to his antiquity as a Poet; or may be got rid of by subterfuges, more or less satisfactory: but I cannot help suspecting that the whole statement is erroneous; that Lucilius was born earlier than 605, and lived more than forty-six years.

Lucilius, I conceive, was the first writer of Hexameter Satire. The Satires of Ennius and Pacuvius seem to have been in irregular metres. I can discover nothing peculiar, or unfairly disparaging, in the language of Horace,

MARSUS. Domitius Marsus, and Propertius, are the only famous Poets of that age, of whose names Horace is silent. I venture, for this reason, to notice them here. Weichert has suggested that Domitius Marsus as a bitter Epigrammatist, and Horace as a Satirist (as he before conjectured in the case of Bibaculus), may have had some hostile encounters. Marsus, as we infer from an Epigram of Martial, was not excluded from the society, at least not from the admiration of Mæcenas:

"Et Mæcenati Maro quum cantaret Alexin,
Nota tamen Marsi fusca Melænis erat."

Lib. xiv. 187.

This Melanis may have been either an Eclogue, or an Elegy; it is cited by the Grammarian Apuleius in Mai. Nov. Collect. But it is as an Epigrammatist that Marsus is quoted by Martial with such constant praise as, with Catullus, the great master in that style of poetry:

"Protinus aut Marsi recitas, aut scripta Catulli,
Hæc mihi das, tanquam deteriora legam,
Ut collata magis placeant mea? credimus illud:
Malo tamen recites, Cæciliane, tua."

II. 71.

He alleges the length of the Epigrams of Marsus as an excuse for his own:

"Marsi, doctique Pedonis
Sæpe duplex unum pagina tractat opus."

ii. 77.

He adduces Marsus as a precedent for a graver fault, the licence of his poetry :

"Sic scribit Catullus, sic Marsus, sic Pedo, sic Gætulicus."

Epist. ad. Lect. lib. i.

He requests the keeper of the Palatine Library to find a place for his works :

"Qua Pedo, qua Marsus, quaque Catullus erat."

Lib. v. 5.

And in an adulatory Poem to Crispinus (the Crispinus of Juvenal's fierce Satire), he entreats him to recommend his Poems to the Emperor, as not much inferior to those of Marsus and Catullus :

"Nec Marso nimium minor est, doctoque Catullo,
Hoc satis est ipsi cætera mando Deo."

vii. 99.

Marsus was likewise an Epic Poet; but his great admirer, Martial, is by no means flattering in his allusion to one of the works of Marsus of this class. The single book of Persius is more often remembered than the whole Amazonis of Marsus.

66 Sæpius in libro memoratur Persius uno,
Quam levis in tota Marsus Amazonide."

iv. 28.

But in another Poem he re-establishes the fame of Marsus, by ranking him with Varius, and all the gifted names of the older Poets, and as only inferior to Virgil.

"Quid Varios, Marsosque loquor ditataque vatum
Nomina, magnus erit quos numerare labor?

Ergo ero Virgilius, si munera Mæcenatis

Des mihi? Virgilius non ero, Marsus ero."

viii. 56.

In the age immediately following his own, the name of Marsus stood high as an Epic Poet. Ovid names him with Rabirius.

"Cum foret et Marsus, magnique Rabirius oris."

De Ponto IV. xvi. 5.

182

PERSONÆ HORATIANE.

But while Rabirius is slightly mentioned, Marsus is un-
noticed by Quintilian. The most singular coincidence,
however, between the life of Horace and that of Marsus, is,
that a fragment of Marsus mentions, apparently from the
Poet's personal reminiscence as a fellow-student and fellow-
sufferer, the proverbial cane and rod of the Schoolmaster

Orbilius.

"Si quos Orbilius ferulâ scuticâque cecidit :"

Marsus also mentions another schoolmaster, Q. Cæcilius
Epirota, a freed-man of Atticus, who lived on the most
friendly terms with Cornelius Gallus, and after his con-
demnation and death set up a school.

"Epirota, tenellorum nutricula vatum."

Sueton. de. Illus. Gramm. c. 16.

In this line, Weichert imagines that he has discovered the
cause of the animosity (an animosity, which he has almost
as fancifully assumed) between Marsus and Horace. Cæci-
lius, he supposes, had introduced the modern Poets, Virgil
and Horace, into his school, instead of the older writers,
against the pedantic worship of which Horace is continually
protesting, especially in his Epistle to Augustus, and in his
Art of Poetry. But this line is part, Weichert further
conjectures, of a bitter Epigram of Marsus, against the
Grammarian, for this tasteless innovation.

Of the Poetry of Marsus remains, 1. The Epitaph on
Tibullus, which, as on the friend of Horace, may find a
place here.

"Te quoque Virgilio comitem non æqua, Tibulle,

Mors juvenem campos misit in Elysios :
Ne foret, aut elegis molles qui fleret amores,

Aut caneret forti regia bella pede."

2. An Epigram, expressive of strong contempt for those same

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