Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

INTRODUCTIONTO TIBERIANUSFrom Jerome's Chronicle (ad aim. 2352) we learnthat Tiberianus, " vir disertus," was a governor inGaul as " praefectus praetorio " in a.d, 335. Possiblyhe is the same as the Tiberianus Mhom we find holdingofficial positions in Africa and Spain slightly earlierin the fourth century. His poetry is represented by afew surviving poems and quotations. The feeling forthe beauty of nature pervading the twenty trochaictetrameters * in his Amnis ihat gives some countenanceto Baehrens' suggestion that he composed themetrically similar Pervigilium J^eiieris ;^ and thealmost entire avoidance of quadrisyllabic endings inthat poem bears, it has been argued, a resemblanceto the manner of Tiberianus.*^ His authorship of thetwenty-eight hexameters on the pernicious influenceof gold is attested by Servius' citation of its thirdline on Aeneid VL 136. The twelve hendecasyllabics" Tiberianus apparently uses greater metrical licence thanis found in the Fervigiliutn Veneris. He allows an anapaestin the fifth foot, if either Baehrens' violnrum sub spiritu orGarrod's violarum suspiritu is accepted in line 7, and a spondeein the fifth foot, if the MS. readings are correct in lines 6and 14.* See Introduction to Florus for the contention that thePervigilium is much earlier: cf. also Introduction to the poemin Loeb ed. of Catullus, TibuUus and Perrig. Ven.'^See Appendix to J. A. Fort's ed. of Pervig. Ven., Oxford,1922.555