Once we have accepted that the Ciris stems from neither Virgil nor Gallus, but was written by a post-Virgilian poetaster, the obvious task for us is to try and formulate some more specific idea of the date of the poem. I think that it has been sufficiently proved that the Ciris is not only post-Virgilian, but post-Ovidian in origin, including as it does unquestionable imitations of that author. But this, to date, is really as far as we have got. It is the purpose of this paper to put forward the thesis that the author of the Ciris lived late enough to know and be influenced by Statius and other poets of the later first century A.D.

Now of course any theory that the Ciris knew and used Statius and other Silver poets is rendered highly unlikely if it can be maintained that Suetonius considered it, with the other minora, a genuine Virgilian work. And so we are brought back again to the famous list in the Donatan Life:

deinde Catalepton et Priapea et Epigrammata et Diras, item Cirim et Culicem, cum esset annorum XXVI. cuius materia talis est. pastor fatigatur aestu; cum sub arbore condormisset et serpens ad eum proreperet, e palude culex provolavit atque inter duo tempora aculeum fixit pastori. at ille continuo culicem contrivit et serpentem interemit ac sepulchrum culici statuit et distichon fecit:

Towards the end of his list of colonial foundations, writing with apparent precision, dating the event not only by the consuls of the year but back from his time of writing, and using it as a means of fixing the colonization of Eporedia, Velleius Paterculus records the foundation of Narbo Martius: ‘Narbo autem Martius in Gallia Porcio Marcioque consulibus abhinc annos circiter centum quadraginta sex, deducta colonia est. Post duodeviginti annos in Bagiennis Eporedia Mario sextum Valerioque Flacco consulibus.’ If this is the offering of a gift horse, it has not always been graciously received. Velleius’ date has been questioned and rejected in a searching article by Mr. H. B. Mattingly, and more than once Mr. Mattingly's conclusions have been quoted with approval by Professor E. Badian. Mr. Mattingly began his attack by casting doubt on the authority of Velleius’ list as a whole: Velleius did not consult Livy at first hand, or any semi-official list, but used sources of differing value, one of them perhaps Greek. Nor is his testimony really confirmed by any of the later writers who seem to agree with him: they lazily follow him without looking for independent evidence.

The pluralis inapposite, sinceωμος applied to a band of revellers is a collective noun and, however many times the band accompanied Dionysus, it is still the sameωμος and not a plurality ofωμοι. Dobree's and Bothe's κώμοις must face the same objection, unless it is understood as ‘songs’ (as at 492–3 ), in which case it becomes a feeble anticipation of οιδᾶις in 40. Florens Christianus' κμοί is negligible. Porson suggested κώμωι but left it unclear whether he interpreted Bακχίωι as adjective or noun. Bάκχιος is used adjectivally not more than once or twice in over thirty Euripidean examples (eight in this play), and the satyrs cannot be said to have accompanied a Bacchicωμος, for theωμος was constituted of the satyrs themselves. And yet Bακχίωι interpreted as a noun would produce an intolerably unstylish collocation of independent datives. Unimpeachable sense and style, and a strong candidate for corruption, would be furnished byωμος (, ‘serving alongside Bacchus as his revelling train’).

These seem to be regarded as quite a different type of building from houses.

The terminology used of them is to a large extent distinct. The only case of extensive overlapping has probably a special stylistic reason.

The main words involved are κλισίη (soldiers' hut or herdsman's cottage), αύλή (yard or farmyard), μσσαυλος (animal enclosure), and σταθμός/–οί (the whole complex of farm buildings). The evidence is scanty: in the Iliad there are a number of passages relating to soldiers' huts, and a few mentions of farms in similes and in the Shield section. In the Odyssey there is Eumaeus' farm. This is virtually all. There is also, inevitably, a dearth of archaeological evidence for country buildings, since the remains of these are apt to be less noticeable, and often less durable, than those of large settlements.