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Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

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INTRODUCTIONTO THE ELEGIESThese two elegies are transmitted as a single continuouspoem in manuscripts of the minor " Virgilian"works {Culex, Dirae, Copa, Moretum). The ascriptionto Virgil is chronologically impossible ; for Maecenasdied in 8 b.c, eleven years after \'irgil. Scaligerfirst separated the longer poem from the thirty-fourlines which give the " Dying Words of Maecenas,"<strong>and</strong> he propounded the guess (once considered attractive)that both elegies, as well as the Consolatio adLiviam. might be the work of Albinovanus Pedo.To some extent modern opinion inclines to accept asgenuine the claim of the author (Eleg. I. 1-2 '.cf. II.3-4) to have already written the consolatory lamentaddressed to Livia on the death of Drusus/' Therepetition of the phrases Caesaris illiai opus <strong>and</strong>ilia rapit iuvenes ^ as well as the noteworthy parallelismbetween two other passages strengthens the case,

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