2. For a bibliography of older texts and commentaries see Cesareo, Emanuele, La Poesia di Calpurnio Siculo (Palermo, 1931) 8–12Google Scholar and Verdière, Raoul, Calpurnius Siculus: De Laude Pisonis et Bucolica, Collection Latomus 19 (1954) 5–12Google Scholar. Of the few scholars who have studied Calpurnius, Cesareo is the only one to undertake thorough-going literary analysis of the poems, but short critical discussions are included in the following more recent studies: Paladini, M. L., ‘Osservatione a Calpurnio Siculo’, Latomus 15 (1956) 330–346Google Scholar; Korzeniewski, Deitmar, ‘Die Panegyrische Tendenz in den Carmina Einsidliensia’, Hermes 94 (1966) 344–360Google Scholar; Cizek, E., ‘Aspects idéologiques dans la littérature latine’, Studii Classice 4 (1962) 221–240Google Scholar: ‘A propos de la littérature classique au temps de Néron’, Studii Classice 10 (1968) 147–157Google Scholar; Rosenmeyer, Thomas, The Green Cabinet: Studies in the European Pastoral Lyric (Berkeley, 1969) 20–21Google Scholar; 76; 102–103; 123–124; 134; 143; 149; 154; 156; 164; 166; 186; 203; 208; 221; 231; 233; 240; 279. I have not yet been able to obtain Spadaro, M., Sulle Egloghe Politiche di Calpurnio Siculo (Catania, Edigraf., 1969Google Scholar), but Verdière, rev. Latomus 30 (1971) p. 852, suggests that it has to do, in large part, with the dating of the poems.

3. For varied approaches to the structural problems of the Eclogues see, esp. Otis, Brooks, Vergil: A Study in Civilized Poetry (Oxford, 1964) 97–143Google Scholar; Skutsch, Otto, ‘Symmetry and Sense in the Eclogues’, H.S.C.P. 73 (1969) 153–170Google Scholar; Van Sickle, John, ‘Studies of Dialectical Methodology in the Vergilian Tradition’, M.L.N. 86 (1970) 884–928Google Scholar; Brooks Otis, ‘The Eclogues: A Reconsideration in the Light of Klingner’s Book’, in Bardon et Verdière, (edd.), Vergiliana, Recherches sur Virgile, Roma Aeterna 3 (Leiden, 1971Google Scholar).

4. For this classification of the poems see Haupt, M., De Carminibus bucolicis Calpurnii et Nemesiani, (Berlin, 1854Google Scholar); Skutsch, F., s.v. Calpurnius, Pauly-Wissowa, R.E. (1899) 1403Google Scholar; Fuchs, Hugo, ‘Calpurnius und seine Idyllen’, 34 Jahresbericht des K. Staatsgymnasiums in Mähr-Weisskirchen (1915) 5–7Google Scholar; Hamblin, F. R., The Development of Allegory in the Classical Pastoral (Chicago, 1937) 67–70Google Scholar. All of these scholars inter al. reflect the tendency to consider the poems as ‘allegorical’ believing that the pastoral names are intended as thin disguises for figures from the world of Nero’s court. But the use of ‘allegory’ in this sense is not really satisfactory to contemporary critics, and I prefer the term ‘political’, which Mlle. Spadaro, op. cit., above note 2, has used in her title, as having more neutral literary implication. The identification of the ruler with Nero and thus the Neronian date of the poems was established definitively enough by Haupt, op. cit., above note 2; for contending theories, none of which have been seriously considered in recent years, see the discussion in Keene, C. H., The Eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus and M. Aurelius Nemesianus with Introduction, Commentary and Appendix (London, 1887Google Scholar; rep. Hildesheim, 1969) 2–14.

5. Thus Propertius invokes the names, Corydon and Alexis, to represent the Eclogues (2.34.72–73).

6. With two exceptions (4. 152–153; 7.72), quotations follow the edition of Raoul Verdière, op. cit., above note 2. The reader who attempts to follow the poems in a different edition may note that Verdière’s numbering of the lines differs from that in the majority of editions, especially in the first poem where he numbers from line 10 to indicate the presence of a lacuna at the beginning of the poem. Although I have followed his numbering, I am not convinced of the lacuna. I have also consulted the following editions: Glaeser, C. E., Calpurnius et Nemesianus (Göttingen, 1842Google Scholar); Baehrens, E. in Poetae Latini Minores, Vol. 3 (Leipzig, 1885Google Scholar); Schenkl, H., Calpurnii et Nemesiani Bucolica (Leipzig, 1885Google Scholar); C. H. Keene, op. cit., above note 4; Giarratano, C., Calpurnii et Nemesiani Bucolica … Einsidliensia quae dicuntur Carmina interatis curis adiecit, 3rd ed. (Turin, 1943Google Scholar). The new edition by Korzeniewski, Dietmar, Hirtengedichte aus neronischer Zeit (Darmstadt, 1971Google Scholar), should be noted but was not available to me until after this paper had gone to press.

7. For discussion of the recurrent figures in Vergil as symbolic fictional personalities, see Van Sickle, J., ‘The Unity of the Eclogues: Arcadian Forest/Theocritean Trees’, T.A.P.A. 98 (1967) 491–508Google Scholar. The consistency of Corydon’s role in Calpurnius is hardly a new proposal, but has always been associated with a belief that the herdsman’s name is no more than a thin disguise for the poet. See, for instance, Skutsch, op. cit., above note 4, 1404; Hamblin, op. cit., above note 4, 68; Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 21 and 45.

8. See Lawall, , Theocritus’ Coan Idylls: A Poetry Book (Cambridge, Mass., 1967) 4–5Google Scholar; 11; Van Sickle, John, ‘Is Theocritus A Version of Pastoral?’ M.L.N. 84 (1969) 942–946Google Scholar; and now, Segal, Charles, ‘Theocritean Criticism and the Interpretation of the Fourth Idyll’, Ramus 1 (1972) 1–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Vergil see, for instance, Brooks Otis, op. cit., above note 3, 128ff.; Segal, Charles, ‘Tamen cantabitis Arcades — Exile and Arcadia in Eclogues One and Nine’, Arion 4 (1965) 237–266Google Scholar; Putnam, M. C. J., Vergil’s Pastoral Art: Studies in the Eclogues (Princeton, 1970) 3–19Google Scholar. For general discussions of the conflicts in pastoral see Marx, Leo, The Machine in the Garden (Oxford, 1965) 5–11Google Scholar; Cullen, Patrick, Spenser, Marvell and Renaissance Pastoral (Cambridge, Mass., 1971) 1–26Google Scholar; Harold Toliver, , Pastoral Forms and Attitudes (Berkeley, 1971) 1–19Google Scholar.

9. For extremes of opinion, one may compare Hubaux, Jean, Les thèmes bucoliques dans la poésie latine (Brussels, 1930) 219Google Scholar, who sees Calpurnius as ‘conscientious, but lacking in aesthetic sense’, and Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, p. iv, who maintains that he is no pedestrian imitator of the great poets, but ‘un poeta fine e delicato che, avendo bevuto a grandi sorsi alle pure fonti della poesia bucolica classica, è tratto naturalmente a rinnovellarla’. Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 24, speaks also of Calpurnius’ originality within the bucolic convention of allusiveness. For the range of Calpurnius’ imitations, not at all restricted to Vergil’s Eclogues, see Schenkl’s introduction, op. cit., above note 6, pp. xv-xxx, and his extensive catalogue of verbal parallels; also Paladini, op. cit., above note 2, 330ff.

10. Rosenmeyer, op. cit., above note 2, 208, sees, rather, a continuation of Vergil’s efforts towards balancing city and country.

11. See, for instance Morelli, Camillo, ‘Nerone poeta e i poetic intorno a Nerone’, Atheneum 2 (1914) 119Google Scholar, on the inter-relationships of Eclogue I and Seneca’s De dementia, and Hubaux’s analysis of the importance of the golden age theme in the early Neronian age, op. cit., above note 9, 158; 196; 205–206.

12. See Hubaux, op. cit., above note 9, 209; Verdiere, op. cit., above note 2, 33–35, and esp. Postgate, J. B., ‘The Comet of Calpurnius Siculus’, C.R. 16 (1902) 38–40Google Scholar, who notes that the vintage, coming before the waning of summer is very early (Columella suggests September 1–11 in hot districts; 14 October in colder regions). The date must be in late September, and the comet has already been visible for three weeks. Thus Calpurnius ‘ascribes the soi-disant prophecy of Faunus to a date when it would have been really prophetic and made the god deliver it some weeks before the death of the Emperor’s predecessor’.

13. Although the time of year described (Divi Claudii Apolokyntosis, 2) issomewhat later than in Calpurnius, the same aspects of nature — sun and harvest — appear in both.

14. Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 131, comments on the antithesis of sun and shady forest and the way in which the herdsmen see the forest with its grove of tightly inter-laced branches as a defense.

15. The model is in Vergil, Eclogue 6.53: ille latits niveum molli fultus hyacintho (‘that [bull] resting his snowy side on the soft hyacinths’). For genista (‘broom’), which is widespread in the Italian countryside, see Georgics 2.12; 2.434–436; Columella 1.28.

16. There are at least two instances in Roman art where shepherds are shown wearing close-fitting helmets: (1.) In the painting of Romulus discovered in the Sepulchrum Statiliorwn et Aliorum, see Robert, C., ‘Fregio di Pitture Riferabile al Miti di Enea e di Romolo’, Ann. Inst. 1878, 266–267Google Scholar; and for photographs, Nash, Ernest, A Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome, Vol. 2 (Tübingen, 1962) 359Google Scholar and pi. 1142; 365. pi. 1148. (2.) At Ostia on an altar depicting the discovery of Romulus and Remus.

17. Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 131–132, thinks Calpurnius may wish to suggest Polyphemus and Galatea. Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 234, note 2, remarks on the cryptic nature of the comment and proposes that Leuce has either taken another lover, or is acting under a religious ban. These notions may be influenced by Ovid Amores 3.10.1–2, where the girl offers religion as her excuse for avoiding her lover.

18. Eclogue 10. 53–54. Both Rosenmeyer, op. cit., above note 2, 203, and Putnam, op. cit., above note 8, 169, find this practice out of keeping with the pastoral ideals of musical spontaneity and reverence for nature. I suspect that Vergil, at least, is conscious of the extravagance of the idea: Gallus never does carve his songs into the trees; it is merely a passing fancy.

19. Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 136–137, accurately remarks upon Calpurnius’ echoes of the Aeneid, suggesting that Calpurnius chooses the epic, ‘more solemn and mysterious as if he wished the elevation of the poem to increase with the prophecy.’ In his opinion, the creation of such an heroic style required a major effort from the poet whose native bent was towards the idyllic contemplation of pastoral.

20. Aeneid 7. 81–106. See Rosenmeyer, op. cit., above note 2, 240, for additional suggestions: Faunus, as a god connected with fields and tillage, is more stable than the volatile Pan, ‘a member of the economic establishment’.

21. For instance, Iliad 5.160 ff.; 15. 630 ff.; Aeneid 2. 355–358; 9. 59–65.

22. Aeneid 6. 792–793; Aeneid 8. 324–325.

23. See Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 138. A sentence in Seneca’s De Clementia proposing sentiments for an ideal ruler may well underlie this passage and indeed may have suggested the predominant antithesis of dark and light imagery throughout the prophecy (1.1.4): sic me custodio, tamquam legibus, quas ex situ ac tenebris in lucem evocavi, rationem redditurus sim (‘I so hold guardianship over myself, as though I intended to render account to the laws which I have called forth into the light out of squalor and darkness’).

24. vss. 53–54: … iuvenem beata sequuntur saecula, maternis causam qui vicit Iulis. (Already happy ages come in the train of the youth who won a case on behalf of his mother’s Julian ancestors.) Glaeser and Keene adopt the reading of ms. D₁: ‘Qui vicit in ulnis (‘who won a case in his mother’s arms’), but Verdière is surely right in adopting lulis, the reading of mss. N, G, P, and V and explaining it as a reference to Nero’s descent through Agrippina, from the Julio-Claudian house (pp. 235–236, note 10). The reader is, of course, led to recall Aeneid 1. 288: lulius, a magno demissiem nomen lulo (‘Julius, a name handed down from great lulus’).

25. Aeneid 1. 293–296. According to Servius, Vergil had in mind a picture at the entrance of the Forum of Augustus where war and furor were thus represented, but Calpurnius is, in all probability, working directly from Vergil. For the notion that Bellona should be understood as Agrippina see, among others, Hubaux, op. ciu, above note 9, 211.

26. The image recalls Lucan B.C. I, 1–3: bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos iusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem in sua victrici conversum viscera dextra. (I sing of wars, wars which were more than civil, throughout the fields of Thessaly, and of ‘justice’ conferred upon crime, and of a powerful people that turned its victorious sword-hand against its own entrails.)

27. See Aeneid 8.665–669, where the shield of Aeneas depicts Tartareas sedes (‘the abodes of Hell’) and the punishment of Catiline: minaci pendentem scopulo Furiaritmque ora trementem (‘hanging from the threatening cliff and trembling before the countenances of the Furies’).

28. De Re Publico 25–27. On the historical cast of the reference see Paladini, op. cit., above note 2, 337.

29. Such ambiguity is very clear in Aeneid 5. 522–523 where Acestes’ arrow bursts into flame magnoque futurwn augurio monstrum (‘an omen that would be of great significance’), yet Aeneas hails it as a fortunate omen (530–538). For historical references to the comet of 54 see Seneca Q.N. 7.21.20; Suetonius Divi Claudi 46; Dio Cassius 60.35; Pliny N.H. 2.92. Postgate, op. ciu, above note 12, points out that Calpurnius was, no doubt, reflecting contemporary court propaganda while the historians wrote with Nero’s entire career in mind.

30. Eclogue 4. 50–52 (50: aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum — ‘behold the universe shaking with its vaulted weight’). Lucan B.C. I. 53–58 is analogous and also contains the suggestion of the emperor’s balancing or support of the world (57–58: librati pondera caeli/orbe tene medio — ‘support the weight of the balanced heaven in the middle of the earth’). For comment see Paladini, op. cit., above note 2, 341–342.

31. For a summary of interpretations see Verdière, op. ciu, above note 2, 239–240, Note 243, but for Penates, as I read it, meaning the ancestral Gods of Rome see Hermann, L., ‘Réflexions sur la comète de Calpurnius’, Revue Beige de Philologie et d’Histoire 10(1931) 145CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Both Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 152–153 and Paladini, op. cit., above note 2, 343–345, conclude that the passage may be deliberately unclear.

32. One may recall Camillus’ speech against emigration from Rome to Veii, Livy 5.52–53 with its highly emotional references to the stability of the Penates. Perhaps what Calpurnius means to suggest by defunctos is, in fact, the extinction of the sacred fire of Vesta.

33. For onus and occasus in juxtaposition with a possible punning reference to the death of Claudius and the accession of Nero, see Apokolokyntosis 2: adquiescunt omnes poetae non contenti ortus et occasus describere, ut etiam medium diem inquietent (‘all poets are similar in that they cannot rest content with describing sunrise and sunset but even trouble the middle of the day’). The author jokes about fixing a precise hour for Claudius’ demise.

34. For discussion of the adynaton and its possible relationship to Seneca’s astronomical imagery see Palidini, op. cit., above note 2, 344.

35. See M. Putnam, op. cit., above note 8, 162–164, and Leach, E. W., ‘Eclogue 4: Symbolism and Sources’, Arethusa 4(1971) 178Google Scholar.

36. Eclogue 4. 53–54: o mihi turn longae maneat pars ultima vitae spiritus et quantum sat erit tua dicere facta. (May the last part of a long life remain for me and so much of inspired strength as I will need to tell of your deeds.) When this time comes, the poet suggests, he will be able to abandon the pastoral mode for the historical.

37. Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 166, suggests that minax recalls the frenzy of Sybilline prophecy or Bacchic inspiration. There is, of course, some humour in the choice.

38. Rosenmeyer, op. cit., above note 2, 149 points out that Horace makes fun of the echoed voice, and comments on the later pastoralists’ decision to silence nature.

39. Juvenal 7. 48–98. Juvenal uses rural imagery and exploits the metaphorical association of poetic composition and rural labour (48–49): nos tamen hoc agimus tenuique in pulvere sulcos ducimus et litus sterili versamus aratro. (Still we perservere in this effort and we mark our furrows in thin dust and turn over the sands of the shore with a barren plow.)

40. See Rosenmeyer, op. cit., above note 2, 149.

41. Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 15, suggests that Calpurnius, being of Spanish origin, might be thinking of a return to his homeland, but it is possible that his chief purpose is to capture the desolate tone of Meliboeus’ speech in Vergil’s first Eclogue.

42. The passage is based upon the idealized description of the poet’s art in Eclogue 6. 26–30; 69–71, and the young Lycidas’ image of Menalcas the master poet in Eclogue 9. 19–20.

43. For discussion of Calpurnius’ indebtedness to the Georgics, Horace and Tibullus, see Paladini, op. cit., above note 2, 332 ff.

44. Horace Odes 3.4. 37–48. Notably, Calpurnius does not follow Horace in suggesting that the ruler may receive counsel from the Muses (3.4.41–42) but speaks only of song as a tribute and a pleasure to the hearer.

45. The order of stanzas I follow here is that of Giarratono and Verdière which involves the insertion of vss. originally numbered 132–136 between vss. originally numbered 116–117. This arrangement allows the two stanzas depicting rural celebrations to be placed together and the sequence of the seasons to proceed uninterrupted with the harvest directly preceding the conclusion of the poem. The two stanzas 132–136 and 117–121 remain badly mated, but the allusion to buried treasure in the latter would, in any case, be oddly out of keeping with the general tone of the poem. The new order does assign, in each turn, the leading stanza to Corydon and thus points up his role as the elder poet. The order of the stanzas is the same in all mss. but assigns to Corydon the first and last stanzas of the poem. The major problem is that at vs. 97, Amyntas seems to assume the role of leader in the exchange. Thus G. Hermann assumed a lacuna and subsequent editors have made various adjustments in the location of the lacuna or order of the stanzas. See discussion in Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 169, Note 141.

46. Eclogue 5. 36–37: grandia saepe quibus mandavimus hordea sulcis infelix lolium et steriles nascuntur avenae. (In the furrows to which we have often entrusted the swelling grain fruitless tares and barren oats come to life.)

47. Even Hubaux, the least sympathetic of Calpurnius’ critics observes that the song is not as bad as one might fear (op. cit., above note 9, 197). Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 181, praises its elevation and nobility, and Rosenmeyer, op. cit., above note 2, 102, finds, in the picture of the emperor worshipped by nature, a manifestation of the pastoral ideals of peace and freedom.

48. In its emphasis on the agricultural life the seasonal pattern of the song is somewhat reminiscent of Meliboeus’ description of the four seasonal festivals for Daphnis in Vergil’s fifth Eclogue, 64–67.

49. In order to give a coherent translation of this vexed passage, I have used for the initial two vss., the text and translation of Duff, J. W. and Duff, A. M., Minor Latin Poets (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1934) 256–257Google Scholar. Schenkl places a lacuna beween the two verses and Verdière, inter al., follows him, reading the lines thus (157–160):

Thus the relationship of present and future must be reversed and the meaning of tereti (Glaeser’s emendation of teriti [ms.G] altered from a negative to a positive aesthetic sense.

50. See Sermones 2.6.1–4, where Maecenas’ gift of the farm is treated as the unexpected answer to a secret prayer.

51. See Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 250: Meliboeus does not compromise himself; he makes no promises, but, of course, Calpurnius could not put words into the mouth of his patron.

52. See Putnam, op. cit., above note 8, 301–302: ‘The broken crests are the landscape’s reflection of the defeat of the shepherds who had sung beneath them.’

53. Cesareo, op.cit., above note 2, 104–106, attributes the simile to Calpurnius’ own love of the fields, a rustic loyalty that he cannot help but express even when writing of the city. But to his mind, the comparison is infelicitous.

54. Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 110–112: ‘Corydone, pur ora giunto dalla nativa campagna, si trova dinanzi a uno spettacolo cosi nuovo, riguardo alle suo conoscenze zoologiche, che egli ne resta attonito. II mondo cui è abituato gli par crollare: e quando, sentendo parlar di vitelli e di cavalli, vede invece degli animali a lui noti e cari, fiere difformi e strane, non può tenersi da un grido di protesta che è anche sollievo e sfogo per una meraviglia non disgiunta, forse un pò di timore.’ To emphasize Corydon’s lack of knowledge, one may recall how common the motif of exotic animals had become in the domestic wall decorations of the fourth style. See Karl Schefold, , Vergessenes Pompeji (Bern, 1962) 146Google Scholar; PI. 150–151.

55. See Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 114.

56. De Rerum Natura 5. 780–820. For a possible Lucretian echo at vs. 57, see Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 110. For the parallel between this Lucretian passage and the miraculous birth of flowers and incense in Vergil, Eclogue 4. 23–25, see Putnam, op. cit., above note 8, 148–149.

57. In vs. 72 I have substituted croceo (‘saffron’) from ms. V (see Keene et al.) for Verdiere’s subito (‘suddenly’) mss. D₁ and N.

58. In vs. 72, I prefer Glaeser’s reading of croceo (ms. V) over Giarratano’s and Verdière’s adoption of subito (D₁). Keene, op. cit., above note 4, cites Martial, de Spectaculis 21, where such an exhibition is compared to the garden of the Hesperides.

59. Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 109, finds a note of Calpurnian self-parody in the old man’s humour, noting that the style is more suited to prose or satire than to an eclogue.

60. Nero 12. 1–2. For discussion of the amphitheatre see Keene’s Appendix, op. cit., above note 4, 197–203.

61. Annales 13.31.

62. Leach, E.W., ‘Nature and Art in Vergil’s Second Eclogue’, A.J.P. 87(1966) 427–445Google Scholar.

63. Michael Putnam, op. cit., above note 8, 246–247: ‘Corydon’s verses are the hopes of the second Eclogue become actual fact … still … Corydon, while possessing the ideal, lets it be known that he realizes the fragility of his dream.’

64. See for instance, Hamblin, op. cit., above note 4, 68–69; Hubaux, op. cit., above note 9, 226–227. Duff, J. Wight. A Literary History of Rome in the Silver Age (London, 1960) 332Google Scholar, allows for some fiction in suggesting that Corydon’s poverty and his two brothers might not be reliable autobiographical data, while Cesareo, op. cit., 151, suggests that Calpurnius is actually quite reticent about his personal life.

65. See Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 32.

66. For historical allusions that might establish a date of 55 or 56 A.D. see Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 36–37.

67. Steele Commager, The Odes of Horace (New Haven, 1962) 196, suggests that the poem has specific reference to Octavian’s return from Brundisium to Rome after the defeat of Antony.

68. For an analogous contemporary situation see Marti’s, Berthe remarks on Lucan, ‘The Meaning of the Pharsalia’, A.J.P. 66(1945) 374Google Scholar: ‘The very excess of the extravagant praise of Nero in the proemium may point to a disguised, but to the initiated, obvious, satire of the emperor.’ More recently, D. Korzeniewski, op. cit., above note 2, 344–361, has found covert ironies in Einsideln Eclogues, normally considered as pastoral encomium even more extravagant than that of Calpurnius. In his opinion these poems parody Calpurnius whom he regards as a sincere flatterer.

69. See, for instance, Hubaux, op. cit., above note 9, 207.

70. Hubaux, op. cit., above note 9, 185, suggests that if Calpurnius was associated with any of the Pisos it was not L. Calpurnius Piso, the conspirator, but rather the Piso who was consul with Nero in 57.

71. Op. cit., above note 2, 16; Vita Persi, 15–17: amicos habuit a prima adulescentia Caesium Bassum poetam et Calpumium Staturam, qui vivo eo iuvenis discessit (‘he had as friends from early youth Caesius Bassus, the poet, and Calpurnius Statura, who died young while he himself was still alive’).

72. See Cesareo, op. cit., above note 2, 8–12, and Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 15–21, who presents several hypotheses, including the suggestion that the poet came from Spain, but had Sicilian ancestors as suggested by an inscription (C.I.L. 2.2863) found at Caraço that mentions a Cabedus Siccul.

73. Verdière, op. cit., above note 2, 17–18, actually believes that Calpurnius Statura was the brother of the poet, the Ornytus of Eclogue 1, but save for the fact that the Vita does not call Calpurnius Statura a poet there is nothing to exclude the possibility that he was the pastoralist himself.

74. Vita Persi 55, and see Horvath, J. K., ‘Perse et Néron’, Studii Clasice 3 1961) 337–343Google Scholar.

75. Vita Persi 31.

76. Dessen, Cynthia, lunctura Callidus Acri: A Study of Persius’ Satires (Urbana, 111., 1968) 24Google Scholar, suggests that Calpurnius’ work is a prime example of the degenerate, ‘Alexandrian’ poetry influenced by Nero’s philhellenism, but see Korzeniewski, D., ‘Die erste Satire des Persius’, in Die Römische Satire, Wege der Forschung, Band 327 (Darmstadt, 1970) 411–413Google Scholar.

77. I wish to thank Professor Berthe Marti for reading and discussing this paper. All responsibility for the speculations herein remains my own.