Minor Latin poets; with introductions and English translations

INTRODUCTIONTO PHOENIXIt is not surprising that poets and historians,Latin as well as Greek, should have felt the magnetismof legends concerning the phoenix, a strangeEastern bird of brilliantly varied plumage, reappearingin loneliness at long cyclic intervals after anaromatic and musical death, which was at once amysterious loss and a mysterious renewal of life.Even in its pagan forms—for it varied considerablyin detail—the story had undeniable attraction.^The earliest reference traceable is one in Hesiod ^to the bird's longevity. Herodotus' contact withEgypt impelled him to mention the story of its reemergenceat Heliopolis every 500 years—a cyclicperiod doubled and even further increased by other" See W. H. Roscher Ausjuhrliclies Lexicon der griech. u.rom. Mythologie, 1902-1909, III. 2. col. 3450-3472 for anaccount of the Phoenix {^o7viO in literature and in both paganand Christian art, e.g. on coins as a symbol of eternity andrejuvenation. Here it must suffice to select some representativereferences : Herod. II. 73; Ovid.-lw. II. vi. 54, Met. XV.392-407 ; Stat. Silv. II. iv. 36 ; Sen. Epist. xlii. 1 ; Plinv, S.H.X. 3-5; Tac. Ann. VI. 28; Aur. Vict. De Caesaribus 4;Claudian, De Cons. Stil. II. 414-420, Carm. min. xxvii (xliv).* Fragm. 163 (222), 3-4, ed. GoettUng, 1878 = Loeb ed.of Hesiod, etc., p. 74, aurap 6 olvi.$ ivv^a fiev KopaKas sc.YT]pdaK€Tai, " the phoenix Uves nine times longer than theraven." The idea is echoed in the " reparabilis ales" ofAusonius, Bk. VII. Edog. v. 5-6 (Loeb ed.).TT 2643