Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

INTRODUCTION TO PRECATIO TERRAEand at funerals the pig was sacrificed to the Corn-Goddess to secure her favour in receiving the dead.It is, then, inteUigible that the Di Manes and TellusMater should sometimes be coupled ; e.g. Deciusin his devoiio (Li\T VIII. ix. 8) named them together.So Romans came to look on the tomb as an eternalhome " where the spirit of the dead should abide, stilla member of the old clan, still in some kind ofcommunion with the living through the offering ofsacrifice and food.An excellent plastic illustration of the PrecatioTerrae may be found in the allegorical relief of TellusMater, from the walls of the Ara Pacis Augustaedecreed by the Senate to the emperor Augustus in13 B.C. It is symbolic of peace and plenty, andcharacteristically representative of the fusion ofEastern with Western elements in Graeco-Roman art.Baehrens, indeed, would ascribe both the Precationes tothe same period as the Ara Pacis (Miscell. Crit., Groningen,1878, pp. 107-1 13). Under the name ofAntoniusMusa we have a treatise " de herba betonica " in aLeyden MS. (Leidensis), a Breslau MS. (Vratislaviensis),and two Florentine MSS. (Laurentiani).These four also contain the two Precationes in senarii.The Precatio Omnium Herharum is in one MS. (Laur.11th cent.) ascribed to Musa: on this ground Baehrensconcludes that both poems are by him. If thiswere convincing, it would settle their date asAugustan ; but the argument is weak, and there arefeatures in the poems suggestive of a later period.Maiestas tua, for instance, in lines 25 and 32 of the" Buecheler, op. cit., No. 69 suae gnatae, sibeique, uxoribanc constituit domum aeternam ubei omnes pariter aevomdegerent :cf. 1488.