Chapter 89

vidit vultus Pelopeius Orestes: Nec magis attonitos animi sensere tumultus, Cum fueret, Pentheus, aut cum desisset, Agave.

[70] Particularly that after the third foot, which is a feature in his style (Phars. vii. 464), _Facturi qui monstra ferunt_. This mode of closing a period occurs ten times more frequently than any other.

[71] I have collected a few instances where he imitates former poets:-- Lucretius (i. 72-80), Ovid (i. 67 and 288), Horace (v. 403), by a characteristic epigram; Virgil in several places, the chief being i. 100, though the phrase _belli mora_ is not Virgil's; ii. 32, 290, 408, 696; iii. 234, 391, 440, 605; iv. 392; v. 313, 610; vi. 217, 454; vii. 467, 105, 512, 194; viii. 864; x. 873.

[72] Phars. i. 363.

[73] Ib. viii. 3.

[74] Ib. i. 529.

[75] Phars. v. 479.

[76] Ib. v. 364.

[77] _Metuentia astra_, 51; _Sirius irdex_, 247. Cf. Man. i. 399 _sqq._

[78] The rare form _Ditis = Dis_ occurs in these two writers.

[79] Ep. 34, 2.

[80] Ep. 79, 1, 5, 7.

[81] See v. 208, 216, 304, 315, 334.

[82] Tac. A. xiv. 52, _carmina orebrius factitare_ points to tragedy, since that was Nero's favourite study. Mart. i. 61, 7, makes no distinction between Seneca the philosopher and Seneca the tragedian, nor does Quint. ix. 2, 8, _Medea apud Senecam_, seem to refer to any but the well-known name. M. Nisard hazards the conjecture that they are a joint production of the family; the rhetorician, his two sons Seneca and Mela, and his grandson Lucan having each worked at them!

[83] Aen. iv. 11, _Con._

[84] Hippol. 1124 and Oed. 979, are the finest examples.