Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

INTRODUCTION TOwas really Piso," then it is appropriate that he, asthe speaker at Eclogue iv. 1, should appear to quote" quid tac'dus? " from himself. Besides, in spite ofPiso's later complicity in the conspiracy against Nero,he had been at one time on intimate terms with theemperor,^ and might well have indulged in pastoralpanegyrics upon him. This implies that the Einsiedelnpoems preceded the Calpurnian eclogues. Butif the gaudete ruinae and laudaie rogos of Einsied. i.40-41 could be taken to indicate composition afterthe fire of Rome in a.d. 64, then it is hard to picturePiso so praising Nero on the verge of his plot againsthim. However this may be, the eulogies upon Neroare in the manner of court literature during theopening years of his reign, as is evident from thetone of Seneca's praises in his Apocolocyntosis andDe Clemeritia. Much learned speculation has beenspent on the pieces. It has generally been feltneedless to assert (as Hagen, Buecheler and Birthave done) two separate authors for them ; and,while Lucan, as well as Piso, has been put forwardas the -wTiter, the balance of opinion tends to agreethat there is not enough evidence on which to dogmatise.Ferrara ^ thinks it possible that the twopieces are by Calpurnius Siculus. There are, it istrue, resemblances between the Einsiedeln pairand his eclogues ; but the verj^ fact that the adulationof Nero in the first piece and the restoration of the