62.

[954] Persius was one of the few men of rank and affluence among the
Romans, who acquired distinction as writers; the greater part of them
having been freedmen, as appears not only from these lives of the poets,
but from our author's notices of the grammarians and rhetoricians. A
Caius Persius is mentioned with distinction by Livy in the second Punic
war, Hist. xxvi. 39; and another of the same name by Cicero, de Orat. ii.
6, and by Pliny; but whether the poet was descended from either of them,
we have no means of ascertaining.

[955] Persius addressed his fifth satire to Annaeus Cornutus. He was a
native of Leptis, in Africa, and lived at Rome in the time of Nero, by
whom he was banished.

[956] Caesius Bassus, a lyric poet, flourished during the reigns of Nero
and Galba. Persius dedicated his sixth Satire to him.

[957] "Numanus." It should be Servilius Nonianus, who is mentioned by
Pliny, xxviii. 2, and xxxvii. 6.

[958] Commentators are not agreed about these sums, the text varying
both in the manuscripts and editions.

[959] See Dr. Thomson's remarks on Persius, before, p. 398.

[960] There is no appearance of any want of finish in the sixth Satire of
Persius, as it has come down to us; but it has been conjectured that it
was followed by another, which was left imperfect.

[961] There were two Arrias, mother and daughter, Tacit. Annal. xvi.
34. 3.

[962] Persius died about nine days before he completed his twenty-ninth
year.

[963] Venusium stood on the confines of the Apulian, Lucanian, and
Samnite territories.

Sequor hunc, Lucanus an Appulus anceps;
Nam Venusinus arat finem sub utrumque colonus.
Hor Sat. xi. 1. 34.
[964] Sat. i. 6. 45.

[965] Horace mentions his being in this battle, and does not scruple to
admit that he made rather a precipitate retreat, "relicta non bene
parmula."--Ode xi. 7-9.

[966] See Ode xi. 7. 1.

[967] The editors of Suetonius give different versions of this epigram.
It seems to allude to some passing occurrence, and in its present form
the sense is to this effect: "If I love you not, Horace, to my very
heart's core, may you see the priest of the college of Titus leaner than
his mule."

[968] Probably the Septimius to whom Horace addressed the ode beginning

Septimi, Gades aditure mecum.--Ode xl. b. i.

[969] See AUGUSTUS, c. xxi.; and Horace, Ode iv, 4.

[970] See Epist. i. iv. xv.