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LAUS PISONIS
favoured never feared an impoverished old age, and concludes by stating that
he is not yet twenty. On first reading one might suppose the poem's aim to be
other than it purports, even indeed that it is a burlesque. But its absurdities
are not blatant enough to bear out this view. Much may be imputed to mere
incompetence. Again, if the poem was indeed written under Nero, the writer
had a delicate task: he could hardly extol military talents, proven or latent.
It might have been better to abandon a hopeless enterprise: certainly the
recurrent apologia seems very jarring in a eulogy. We may recall the inept
Elegies on Maecenas. They, however, were posthumous and their subject
retained general interest. Piso was no such subject, though perhaps he seemed
to be to a circle of dependants. Altogether much in the Laus Pisonis remains
unexplained.
The poem's style is commonplace and usually unexceptionable, sometimes
bathetic or long-winded (e.g. i4off.). In language and metre we find some
affinities with Calpurnius and, to a lesser extent, with Lucan. Exact dating is
unattainable.
5. 'AETNA'
Mt Etna, the most spectacular volcano known to antiquity, had challenged the
descriptive skill of several poets, Pindar and Virgil amongst them. But no one,
it seems, before the anonymous author of the didactic poem Aetna had in
prose or verse attempted a separate and detailed treatment of volcanic activity.
Those authorities, such as Posidonius, upon whom the Aetna depends treated
volcanoes along with earthquakes, not separately. The conception of the
poem is thus original, if its execution is not.
The Aetna is only 645 verses long, but it has a protracted introduction, in
which the poet rejects mythological lore and poetic fancy, then emphasizes
his own concern with truth. He proceeds to describe the earth's crust, which
permits the activity of volcanoes. Then he begins to explain the cause of this
activity, subterranean winds under high pressure, but breaks off into a lengthy
digression on the value of natural science. Having at last dealt with the cause,
he turns to discuss the fuel, lava-stone, on which volcanoes feed. Then, scientific
discussion concluded, he adds an epilogue, first comparing natural spectacles
with those of artistic or historical interest, and finally relating the story of the
brothers of Catania. Various arguments converge to place the poem in the
mid first century A.D. Clear debts to Ovid and Manilius show that it is post-
Augustan. The brief, allusive references to mythological themes at I7ff. recall
the impatience of Persius, amongst others, with such material. And very
striking similarities in thought and expression to Seneca's Natural questions
indicate a closer connexion with that work than merely a common source.
The absence of any mention of Vesuvius gives A.D. 79 as a terminus ante quern.
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