vii. 79 Contentus fama iaceat Lucanus in hortis Marmoreis; at Serrano

tenuique Saleio Gloria quantalibet quid erit, si gloria tantum est? Some have ascribed to him the Eclogues which have come down to us under the name of Calpurnius Siculus. Martial (iv. 37, 2) speaks of a Serranus who was deep in debt. Most old edd. read _Sed eum_, still referring to Severus.

consummari: cp. §122: 2 §28: 5 §14 and frequently in Quintilian (v. Bonnell’s Lex.). Seneca, Ep. 88, 28, una re consummatur animus, scientia bonorum ac malorum immutabili, quae soli philosophiae competit.

in aetate illa: ‘for one so young.’

recti generis: cp. §44 rectum dicendi genus: ix. 3, §3: ii. 5, §11. The objective genitive after ‘voluntas’ is noteworthy: cp. libertatis novae gaudium Flor. i. 9, 3.

I:90 Multum in Valerio Flacco nuper amisimus. Vehemens et poeticum ingenium Salei Bassi 87 fuit, nec ipsum senectute maturuit. Rabirius ac Pedo non in digni cognitione, si vacet. Lucanus ardens et concitatus et sententiis clarissimus, et, ut dicam quod sentio, magis oratoribus quam poetis imitandus.

§ 90. Valerio Flacco. Martial addresses him in i. 77, exhorting him, with some irony, to give up verse-writing as unprofitable and turn lawyer. From another epigram (i. 61) we gather that he was a native of Padua (‘Apona tellus’). He flourished in the reign of Vespasian, to whom he dedicated his _Argonautica_, c. A.D. 70, and died about 88. Juvenal may be referring to this poem i. 8-10: where see Mayor’s notes. There is a touch of personal sorrow about the use of _amisimus_. For the expression cp. Florus iv. 7, 14 Brutus cum in Cassio suum animum perdidisset.

nuper: Flaccus died about 88 A.D. Quintilian wrote his work between 93 and 95.

Salei Bassi. Cp. tenuique Saleio, Iuv. vii. 80, quoted above. His name occurs several times in the Dial. de Orat.: Saleium Bassum, cum optimum virum tum absolutissimum poetam §5: egregium poetam vel si hoc honorificentius est praeclarissimum vatem §9, where it is stated that he got a gift of 500 sestertia from Vespasian: cp. also §10. The Bassus ridiculed by Martial (iii. 47, 58: v. 23: viii. 10: vii. 96) is a different person, though he also wrote tragedies: v. 53, 1-2 Colchida quid scribis, quid scribis, amice, Thyesten? Quo tibi vel Nioben, Basse, vel Andromachen?

87 nec ipsum senectute maturuit: ‘but it was not mellowed by age’: _nec ipsum_ = his genius no more than that of Serranus, above. On the other reading (senectus maturavit) _ipsum_ would be accus. masc.: but the construction is harsh, and _maturo_ in this transitive use is only found in Pliny, of the processes of nature.

Rabirius, a contemporary of Ovid, Ep. ex Ponto iv. 16, 5 magnique Rabirius oris. Velleius Paterculus mentions him along with Vergil, omitting Horace: inter quae (ingenia) maxime nostri aevi eminent princeps carminum Vergilius Rabiriusque ii. 36, 3: Seneca de Benef. vi. 3, 1 egregie mihi videtur M. Antonius apud Rabirium poetam ... exclamare, hoc habeo quodcunque dedi. He is generally supposed to be the author of a fragment on the battle of Actium and the death of Cleopatra, discovered in the rolls of Herculaneum.

Pedo, C. Albinovanus, friend of Ovid, who styles him _sidereus_ ex Pont. iv. 16, 6, _carissime_ iv. 10, 3. Martial refers to him as a scholarly poet (doctique Pedonis ii. 77) and epigrammatist (i. praef.)—in both places along with Domitius Marsus: Paley and Stone are wrong in identifying him with the Celsus Albinovanus of Horace, Epist. i. 3, 15 and 8, 1. Seneca tells a story he had heard from him in Ep. 122, 13, and compliments him as being ‘fabulator elegantissimus.’ M. Seneca (Suas. i. 14) gives us 23 hexameters of his which formed part of a poem celebrating the famous voyage of Germanicus (cp. Tac. Ann. ii. 23). The ‘Consolatio ad Liviam Augustam de morte Drusi Neronis,’ first attributed to him by Scaliger, is now believed to be a production of the fifteenth century (Bernhardy, pp. 486-7). He also wrote a Theseis (Ovid, ex Pont. iv. 10, 71 sq.).

Lucanus, M. Annaeus, the author of the ‘Pharsalia,’ A.D. 38-65. The criticism of Quintilian puts before us Lucan’s merits and defects,—the predominance of the declamatory element being prominent among the latter. In the Dial. de Orat. §20 he is classed along with Vergil and Horace, exigitur ... ab oratore etiam poeticus decor ... ex Horatii et Vergilii et Lucani sacrario prolatus. On the other hand Serv. ad Aen. i. 382 Lucanus ideo in numero poetarum esse non meruit quia videtur historiam composuisse non poema: cp. Petron. Sat. 118. So, too, Martial xiv. 194 Lucanus, Sunt quidam qui me dicant non esse poetam, Sed qui me vendit bibliopola putat. The _ut dicam quod sentio_ seems to indicate that Quintilian is combating the prevailing sentiment about Lucan.—Cp. Heitland’s Introd. to Lucan’s Pharsalia (Haskins), p. lxx.

sententiis—γνώμαις, v. §§50, 61, ‘such general utterances as have a bearing upon human life and action,’ Heitland, pp. lxv-lxvii.

I:91 Hos nominavimus, quia Germanicum Augustum ab institutis studiis deflexit cura terrarum, parumque 88 dis visum est esse eum maximum poetarum. Quid tamen his ipsis eius operibus, in quae donato imperio iuvenis secesserat, sublimius, doctius, omnibus denique numeris praestantius? Quis enim caneret bella melius quam qui sic gerit? Quem praesidentes studiis deae propius audirent? Cui magis suas artes aperiret familiare numen Minervae?

§ 91. Hos, sub. _tantum_: as 5 §7 uno genere. See Nägelsbach §84 on the omission of adverbs: p. 331 sq.

Germanicum. Domitian took this title after his expedition against the Chatti, A.D. 84: Frontinus, Strateg. ii. 11, 7 Imperator Caesar Augustus Germanicus eo bello quo victis hostibus cognomen Germanici meruit. Of this triumph Tacitus says (Agric. 39) that Domitian was conscious ‘derisui fuisse falsum e Germania triumphum.’ For the tone of adulation cp. Proem. Book IV, 2 sq., where Domitian is spoken of as ‘sanctissimus censor,’ and ‘principem ut in omnibus ita in eloquentia eminentissimum,’ and is even invoked as a divinity,—nunc omnes in auxilium deos ipsumque in primis quo neque praesentius aliud nec studiis magis propitium numen est, invocem. Hild compares the following passages as showing the spirit of the age:—Statius, Silvae i. 1 and 4: iii. 3: iv. 1 and 2: Silius Italicus iii. 618 sq.: Valerius Flaccus i. 12: and Martial, Epist. Ded. of vii.: cp. 65, 82 et passim. See Introd. p. xi.

ab institutes studiis: Suet. Dom. 2 simulavit et ipse mire modestiam imprimisque poeticae studium, tam insuetum antea sibi quam postea spretum et abiectum, recitavitque etiam publice. From Val. Flacc.