Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

INTRODUCTION TOand that the volcanic fire gets a nutritive material inthe lava-stone {lapis molaris).There are digressions from which the poem gainsin attractiveness. One passage (224-273) utters astirring proclamation of the majesty of physicalresearch in contrast ^-ith mankind's ignoble cares.Again, towards the conclusion, the poet turns fromtheorising about physical phenomena to an episode(604-64:6) which centres in the human quality ofheroic devotion sho^^^l by two brothers who rescuetheir parents from a sea of fire during an appallingeruption.The difficulty of the poem itself is partly textual,partly stylistic—the former becomes evident in theapparatus criticus; the latter, in great measure,arises from a striving after brevity, a tendency tooverload words and phrases, a fondness for metaphorand for personification, and perhaps an occasionaladoption of expressions from the sermo pleheius ofRome." These points resemble characteristics ofthe *' Silver " Latinity of the early empire. Theterseness, too, in mythological references, wheredetails are taken for granted as well known, suggestssome degree of lateness in period,^ and is consistentwith Buecheler's verdict that the poem must be laterthan Ovid and Manilius and with Munro's testimonyregarding its versification. But it must have beencomposed before a.d. 63, as the terrible earthquakewhich devastated the towns close to Vesuvius in thatyear could not have been overlooked by a didacticpoet who had the volcanic zone of Campania under" See J. M. Stowasser, Zur Latinitdl des Aetna in Zeitschrijtfur d. oesterr. Gymn., 51 (1900), p. 385.35^" E. Bickel, Rhein. Mus. Ixxix. 3 (1930).