Two fragments of a poem on Fowling (Ixeutica or De Aucupio) were printed in a Dialogue on Birds (Cologne, 1544) by Gibertus Longolius, who asserted that they had been transcribed for him from a copy of a work by Nemesianus existing in a library at Bologna. Wernsdorf, in opposition to Ulitius, thinks them not unworthy of their reputed author: but in any case they need not detain us further. [They are probably modern work.]

The elder Pliny, in two passages of his Natural History,' speaks of a poem by Ovid, entitled Halieutica. A fragment on that subject with Ovid's name attached to it is found in a MS. containing part of Grattius' Cynegetica, and has been frequently printed in editions of Grattius and Nemesianus, or as part of Ovid's works. It would perhaps be too much to assign it to such illustrious parentage, though Haupt thinks otherwise: but it would not disgrace either of the two poets whom we have just been considering. Take a specimen.

'At contra scopulis crinali corpore segnis

polypus haeret, et hac eludit retia fraude,
et sub lege loci sumit mutatque colorem,

semper ei similis quem contigit: atque ubi praedam
pendentem saetis avidus rapit, hic quoque fallit
elato calamo, cum demum emersus in auras
bracchia dissolvit, populatumque exspuit hamum.
at mugil cauda pendentem everberat escam
excussamque legit. lupus acri concitus ira
discursu fertur vario, fluctusque ferentis

prosequitur, quassatque caput, dum volnere saevus
laxato cadat hamus, et ora patentia linquat.'

Another fragment with the same argument was published by Hieronymus Columna in his Commentary on the Fragments of Ennius, having been transcribed from an old MS. by Sertorius Quadrimanus. More ambitious than the former, to which however it is indebted for several lines, it professes in its exordium to be the work of Ovid, who speaks of himself as led to his subject by the scenes of his exile: but though the lines in which the profession is made are not without ability, those who should credit it would be compelled to suppose that Ovid's removal from Rome had made him forget the quantity of the first syllable of 'dirigo,' as he ventures to address Glaucus—

'Quare si veteris durant vestigia moris,

si precibus hominum flectuntur numina ponti,
huc adsis, dirigasque pedes, umerosque natantis.'

The date of Q. Serenus Sammonicus is at any rate earlier than that

1 Book XXXII, chaps. ii and xi.

2 [Most modern scholars agree with Haupt: see Teuffel, 250-4.]

of Nemesianus, though it has been questioned whether he is to be identified with a person of that name, 'cuius libri,' says Spartianus, 'plurimi ad doctrinam exstant,' who was put to death by Caracalla, or with his son, the preceptor of the younger Gordian, and the valued friend of Alexander Severus. His work, however, De Medicina Praecepta, in 1115 hexameters, is not properly a didactic poem at all, but merely a medical treatise in metre. Those who are fond of classical parallels may compare it with Catius' lecture to Horace: but to others it will seem a product of the second childhood of literature, when subjects, which, since prose composition existed, have always been treated in prose, are set to tune again by the perverse ingenuity of grammarians. The only part which appears to have any poetical pretension is the opening.

'Membrorum series certo deducta tenore

ut stet, nam similis medicinae defluit ordo,
principio celsa de corporis arce loquamur.
Phoebe, salutiferum, quod pangimus, adsere carmen,
inventumque tuum prompto comitare favore.

tuque potens artis, reducem qui tradere vitam

nosti, seu caelo manis revocare sepultos,

qui colis Aegeas, qui Pergama, quique Epidaurum,
qui quondam placidi tectus sub pelle draconis

Tarpeias arcis atque incluta templa petisti
depellens taetros praesenti numine morbos,
huc ades, et quidquid cupide mihi saepe roganti
firmasti, cunctum teneris expone papyris.'

Now let us listen to a remedy for a stiff neck.

'At si cervices durataque colla rigebunt,
mira loquar, geminus mulcebitur unguine poples;
hinc longum per iter nervos medicina sequetur :
anseris aut pingui torpentia colla fovebis.
inlinitur valido multum lens cocta in aceto,
aut caprae fimus et bulbi, aut cervina medulla:
hoc etiam immotos flectes medicamine nervos.
quos autem vocitant tolles, attingere dextra

debebis, qua gryllus erit pressante peremptus.'

Still more barren and unpoetical is Prisciani Carmen de Ponderibus et Mensuris, a set of 208 hexameters, the authorship of which is involved in some doubt. The first nine lines will show that in spite of a preliminary flourish, it is little better than a memoria technica, a device for fixing facts about weights and measures in the memory.

1

[The poem is now usually attributed to the son: Teuffel, 383.1

'Pondera Paeoniis veterum memorata libellis

nosse iuvat. pondus rebus natura locavit
corporeis; elementa suum regit omnia pondus.
pendere terra manet: vacuus quoque ponderis aether
indefessa rapit volventis sidera mundi.

ordiar a minimis, post haec maiora sequentur ;

nam maius nihil est aliud quam multa minuta.
semioboli duplum est obolus, quem pondere duplo
gramma vocant, scriplum nostri dixere priores.'

Here at length we may stop. The didactic poetry with which we have been dealing, though far enough removed from the spirit of the Georgics, has at any rate preserved their form. Terentianus Maurus may have been as much of a didactic poet as Sammonicus or the supposed Priscian; but as he chose to exemplify in his work the various metres for which he laid down rules, he can hardly come under consideration in an essay which is intended to illustrate by comparison the didactic poetry of Virgil. Other works which the historians of Latin literature have classed among didactic poems seem to be excluded by different reasons. The Phaenomena of Avienus, like the fragments of Cicero and Germanicus, hardly calls for notice independently of Aratus' work. The poem on Aetna has didactic affinities, but its subject is not sufficiently general. The Periegeses of Avienus and Priscian fall rather under the category of descriptive poetry. Columella's Tenth Book has been mentioned in another place (G. IV 148).

INDEX OF NAMES AND PRINCIPAL

NOTES.