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CALPURNIUS SICULUS
patron represented as Meliboeus in Calp. i and 4. Enthusiasm about a new
golden age, evinced both by Calpurnius and the Einsiedeln poet, links these
writers together and accords with other evidence for the optimism and sense
of revival which seem to have marked Nero's accession to power. The period
was prolific in literature, major and minor, and some modern critics attempt
to determine the relationships which obtained between various writers or
groups. Not enough evidence exists to support such reconstructions. And
recently the conventional dating of Calpurnius' poems has itself been called
in question.
Calpurnius is overshadowed by Theocritus and Virgil, who provided his
main inspiration. But he kept bucolic poetry alive by somewhat extending its
scope: though he acknowledges Virgil as a supreme model (4.643".), he does not
entirely restrict himself to the paths which Virgil has trodden. Three of
Calpurnius' eclogues (1, 4, 7) are more fully and obviously concerned with
contemporary affairs than any of Virgil's, except (arguably) his fourth. In that
poem (1-3) Virgil would fain excuse his unusual theme, but Calpurnius adopts
such themes unhesitatingly, though he is careful to frame them still within
a background of fantasy. Again, he draws readily upon other genres, particularly
love elegy (3.45—91), didactic (5), and descriptive epigram (7.23—72).
That is not wholly surprising, for bucolic had always been flexible: witness
Theocritus' versatility, and Virg. Eel. 6 and 10, which include material from
'miniature epic' and elegy. Certainly, by Calpurnius' time, variation on
exclusively pastoral themes, limited in range, would have been uninteresting
and arid. He had to offer somediing of a mixture: purism was not then in
fashion in Latin poetry, if it ever had been.
Calpurnius' book of eclogues has an intentionally patterned structure: the
first, central, and concluding poems (1, 4, 7) relate to the real world around
him, while the others (2, 3, 5, 6) stand, ostensibly at least, apart from present
circumstances. Again, the poems which have dialogue throughout (2, 4, 6)
are interwoven with those which contain long monologues (1, 3, 5, 7).
These patterns are plain enough, but what they signify, if anything of
importance, is not easy to grasp. Further, while Eel. 1 might well date
from the beginning of Nero's rule (A.D. 54 or 55) and Eel. 7 from
some years later (not before A.D. 57), the order of the poems does not
necessarily reflect sequence of composition. Some scholars argue that Eel. 3,
to their taste the crudest of the collection, is the earliest, and perhaps pre-
Neronian. It may be so, but such arguments bring us on to perilously subjective
ground.
Calpurnius' language is neither colourless nor wholly derivative. He had
powers of observation and could deftly describe details or scenes. And he is
generally quite lucid and unaffected. Though no ancient writer mentions
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