Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

MINOR POETRY
Calpurnius, he had a competent imitator in Nemesianus, who might have
bypassed him and reverted directly to Virgil, and he is known to a few even
later poets.
3. 'BUCOLICA EINSIDLENSIA'
These two incomplete and enigmatic eclogues may be dated to Nero's principate,
but not to an exact time within it. 1.386°. alludes to Nero's Troica as
contemporary, but in what year that work first stunned the world is uncertain.
The second poem is concerned with a new golden age, introduced by a ruler
who assimilates himself to Apollo. This fits Nero, and best perhaps his early
years. We cannot be sure that the poems are by the same author, but a few
minor metrical differences do not preclude common authorship. It is notable,
however, that Buc. 2, unlike Buc. 1, diverges from tradition in sometimes
changing speakers within lines.
In the first eclogue two shepherds compete in singing the praises of the
poet-emperor. The flattery which they effuse is exceptionally extravagant,
and when, at 48—9, Mantua is represented as so conscious of Virgil's inferiority
to Nero that it seeks to obliterate his works, we may well wonder whether the
intention is not comic and derisive. The second eclogue is not a little perplexing.
One of the speakers says that his joy is disturbed by care, and, pressed
for explanation, that satiety is his trouble. Then he describes the blissful
security which all may now enjoy. Perhaps he is playing with the old idea that
peace is morally enervating, and, if so, offering a back-handed compliment to
Nero's regime. There is thus a prima facie case for taking neither poem at
face-value: sometimes, after all, impotent malice obtains refuge in riddles.
The alternative is to dismiss both of them as vacuous and incoherent. The
obscurity and clumsiness of their expression encourage the latter view, but
the mutilation of the text enjoins hesitance.
4. 'iAUS PISONIS'
The 'Panegyric on Piso' is a distinctly odd composition and, if the poet
expected Piso to approve of what he says, addressed to a distinctly odd person.
He says first that Piso's personal qualities outshine his distinguished ancestry,
then that he has won no military glory, but earned fame as a speaker in the
courts and Senate (yet only a ceremonial speech is mentioned), and next, in
81—208 (about half of the poem), that he is affable, generous, and devoted to
laudable recreations, cultural and physical, including a certain board game
(190—208), at which he conspicuously excels. Having said this, he affirms
(210) that Piso's merits defy adequate record, then importunes this up-to-date
nobleman to become his patron, pointing out that the writers whom Maecenas
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