Lives of the Poets | Page 8

A.U.C. 786, A.D. 34.
[953] A.U.C. 814, A.D. 62.
[954] Persius was one of the few men of rank and affluence among the Romans, who acquired distinction as writers; the greater part of them having been freedmen, as appears not only from these lives of the poets, but from our author's notices of the grammarians and rhetoricians. A Caius Persius is mentioned with distinction by Livy in the second Punic war, Hist. xxvi. 39; and another of the same name by Cicero, de Orat. ii. 6, and by Pliny; but whether the poet was descended from either of them, we have no means of ascertaining.
[955] Persius addressed his fifth satire to Annaeus Cornutus. He was a native of Leptis, in Africa, and lived at Rome in the time of Nero, by whom he was banished.
[956] Caesius Bassus, a lyric poet, flourished during the reigns of Nero and Galba. Persius dedicated his sixth Satire to him.
[957] "Numanus." It should be Servilius Nonianus, who is mentioned by Pliny, xxviii. 2, and xxxvii. 6.
[958] Commentators are not agreed about these sums, the text varying both in the manuscripts and editions.
[959] See Dr. Thomson's remarks on Persius, before, p. 398.
[960] There is no appearance of any want of finish in the sixth Satire of Persius, as it has come down to us; but it has been conjectured that it was followed by another, which was left imperfect.
[961] There were two Arrias, mother and daughter, Tacit. Annal. xvi. 34. 3.
[962] Persius died about nine days before he completed his twenty-ninth year.
[963] Venusium stood on the confines of the Apulian, Lucanian, and Samnite territories.
Sequor hunc, Lucanus an Appulus anceps;?Nam Venusinus arat finem sub utrumque colonus.
Hor Sat. xi. 1. 34. [964] Sat. i. 6. 45.
[965] Horace mentions his being in this battle, and does not scruple to admit that he made rather a precipitate retreat, "relicta non bene parmula."--Ode xi. 7-9.
[966] See Ode xi. 7. 1.
[967] The editors of Suetonius give different versions of this epigram. It seems to allude to some passing occurrence, and in its present form the sense is to this effect: "If I love you not, Horace, to my very heart's core, may you see the priest of the college of Titus leaner than his mule."
[968] Probably the Septimius to whom Horace addressed the ode beginning
Septimi, Gades aditure mecum.--Ode xl. b. i.
[969] See AUGUSTUS, c. xxi.; and Horace, Ode iv, 4.
[970] See Epist. i. iv. xv.
Me pinguem et nitidum bene curata cute vises.
[971] It is satisfactory to find that the best commentators consider the words between brackets as an interpolation in the work of Suetonius. Some, including Bentley, reject the preceding sentence also.
[972] The works of Horace abound with references to his Sabine farm which must be familiar to many readers. Some remains are still shewn, consisting of a ruined wall and a tesselated pavement in a vineyard, about eight miles from Tivoli, which are supposed, with reason, to mark its site. At least, the features of the neighbouring country, as often sketched by the poet--and they are very beautiful--cannot be mistaken.
[973] Aurelius Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus were consuls A.U.C. 688. The genial Horace, in speaking of his old wine, agrees with Suetonius in fixing the date of his own birth:
O nata mecum consule Manlio?Testa.--Ode iii. 21.?And again,
Tu vina, Torquato, move?Consule pressa meo.--Epod. xiii. 8.
[974] A.U.C. 745. So that Horace was in his fifty-seventh, not his fifty-ninth year, at the time of his death.
[975] It may be concluded that Horace died at Rome, under the hospitable roof of his patron Mecaenas, whose villa and gardens stood on the Esquiline hill; which had formerly been the burial ground of the lower classes; but, as he tells us,
Nunc licet Esquiliis habitare salubribus, atque?Aggere in aprico spatiare.--Sat. i. 8.
[976] Cordova. Lucan was the son of Annaeus Mella, Seneca's brother.
[977] This sentence is very obscure, and Ernesti considers the text to be imperfect.
[978] They had good reason to know that, ridiculous as the tyrant made himself, it was not safe to incur even the suspicion of being parties to a jest upon him.
[979] See NERO, c. xxxvi.
[980] St. Jerom (Chron. Euseb.) places Lucan's death in the tenth year of Nero's reign, corresponding with A.U.C. 817. This opportunity is taken of correcting an error in the press, p. 342, respecting the date of Nero's accession. It should be A.U.C. 807, A.D. 55.
[981] These circumstances are not mentioned by some other writers. See Dr. Thomson's account of Lucan, before, p. 347, where it is said that he died with philosophical firmness.
[982] We find it stated ib. p. 396, that Lucan expired while pronouncing some verses from his own Pharsalia: for which we have the authority of Tacitus, Annal. xv. 20. 1. Lucan, it appears, employed his last hours in revising his poems; on the contrary, Virgil, we are told, when