for Cerinthus, the real or fictitious name of a beautiful youth. Sulpicia seems to have belonged to the intimate society of Messala (Eleg. iv. 8). Tibullus may therefore have written these verses in the name of Sulpicia. But if Sulpicia was herself the Poetess, she approaches nearer to Tibullus than any other elegiac writer. The first book of Elegies alone was published during the lifetime of Tibullus, probably soon after the triumph of Messala. The birthday of the great General gives the Poet an opportunity of describing all his victories in Gaul and in the East. The second book celebrates the cooptation of Messalinus, son of Messala, into the College of the Quinquennii. The second book was published after the Poet's death. TITIUS. Epist. 1. iii. 9. Probably the same Titius addressed by Tibullus (Eleg. 1. iv. 73) "Hæc mihi, quæ canerem Titio, Deus edidit ore." The Scholiast (Cruq.) gives him the name of Septimius; and, on this ground, he has been identified by Broukhusius, and several of the older commentators, whom Weichert follows, with the Septimius to whom is inscribed Carm. II. Ode vi. (see "Septimius"). I am inclined to reject the authority of the Scholiast, with Masson, Vanderbourg, Orelli, and others. It seems clear to me that this Titius was one of the young companions or attendants on Tiberius: but Septimius was about the same age as Horace. Titius was a Poet of high aspirations; he had attempted either to translate or to imitate Pindar, and also to write Tragedies, but his works were yet unpublished, "Romana brevi venturus in ora." It has been concluded, chiefly from the contemptuous manner in which the Scholiasts speak of Titius (his works were thought by Acron of no value), and they were quite lost in the time of the later commentator (Cruq.), that there is a covert irony in the language of Horace. The opposite opinion is very gracefully maintained by Jacobs, Lectiones Venusinæ xv., art. Titius. I cannot help conceiving some secret struggle in the mind of Horace himself, between his kindly feeling towards Titius, and the scepticism of his taste, as to Titius being really equal to his own lofty designs. VALGIUS: CAIUS VALGIUS RUFUS.-Sat. 1. x. 81. Carm. II. ix. The family of Valgius is so obscure, that it is unknown whether he was of Plebeian or Patrician descent. One or two persons of the name are mentioned by Cicero; but it owes its first distinction to the Poet, the friend of Horace. There seems no good ground for rejecting the tradition of the Scholiast, that he is the same Valgius Rufus who was Consul (Suffectus) with C. Caninius Rutilius, on the demission of the Consulate by M. Valerius Messala Barbatus, and P. Sulpicius Quirinus, u. c. 742. Valgius has been ranked among the Epic Poets, on the authority of two lines in the Panegyric of Messala, among the works of Tibullus: But this "Est tibi, qui possit magnis se accingere rebus passage stands alone; neither does any contemporary writer, nor does Quintilian mention this second Homer among the Epic Poets. No Epic line of Valgius survives; and this wretched Poem concerning Messala is certainly not by Tibullus, and, therefore, of very doubtful date. Yet when Horace urges Valgius to cast aside his elegiac strains, and sing the eastern triumphs of Augustus, he must have thought that he had aspired, or was capable of aspiring, to a loftier style. Of the poetry of Valgius a few couplets survive two of them are elegiac, but hardly seem to belong to the mournful strains in which he lamented the loss of his beloved Mystes-they have more the turn of a Descriptive Poem: "Et placidam fossæ qua jungunt ora Padusam, Apud SERVIUM ad Virg. Æneid. xi. 457. "Huc mea me longo succedens prora remulco Lætantem gratis sistit in hospitiis." Apud ISIDOR. Origg. xix. 4. The following seem to be from a Pastoral or Bucolic Poem :— "Sed nos ante casam tepidi mulgaria lactis, Et sinum vini cessamus ponere Baccho." Apud PHILARGYRUM AD VIRG. GEORG. III. 176. Valgius was likewise a Prose Writer: he wrote on the Art of Rhetoric, as a scholar of Apollodorus. From this, or from similar works, he was called Grammaticus. He is not unfrequently quoted as an authority on the use and signification of words. Aulus Gellius (xiii. 3) and the Grammarian Charisius (i. p. 84) cite a work De Rebus per Epistolam quæsitis. Compare Weichert, Poetæ Latini, 203, 240. A long and laborious treatise "De Valgii Rufi Poematis has just appeared, by Robertus Unger; full of ingenious conjecture. Halis. 1848. L. VARIUS. Of his family and birth nothing is cer tainly known his birth is placed by ingenious conjecture, u. c. 672; in the Consulship of C Marius and Cn. Papirius Carbo. By this calculation he was younger than Catullus -born u. c. 667; six years older than Asinius Pollio, twelve than Virgil, seventeen than Horace. This scheme of Weichert's depends materially on the reading of the name of Varius in Catull. x. 1; which, if correct, shows the intimacy of Varius with that Poet (Weichert, De Lucio Vario, p. 15). The respectful tone in which Virgil speaks of Varius (Ecl. ix. 35) confirms this view: At the date of that Eclogue, Varius, with Cinna, was already a Poet of established fame. In his earlier Poems (Sat. I. x. 44) Horace only mentions the Epic Poetry of Varius; in Carm. I. vi. he alludes to the Thyestes. Varius, therefore, wrote that famous Tragedy between the Satires and Odes of Horace. Varius survived Virgil, who died u. c. 735: he was one of those friends who saved the Eneid from the flames, and assisted in correcting it. He died before u.c. 744-5-the date of Epist. II. i. 247. Weichert's conjectural dates for the Poems of Varius, are for the De Morte (Julii Cæsaris), after Philippi, u. c. 713 or 714; the Panegyric on Octavius, before u. c. 727; the Thyestes, U. c. 727. Of the Poem De Morte some lines survive, all pure and spirited; some of masculine beauty; and, it is remarkable, almost all imitated by Virgil: to this, indeed, we owe their preservation by Macrobius. "Vendidit hic Latium populis, agrosque Quiritum Apud MACROB. SATURN. VI. 1. confer. VIRG. * "Incubat et Tyriis, atque ex solido bibit auro. * Quem non ille sinit lentæ moderator habenæ, "Ceu canis umbrosam lustrans Gortynia vallem, Non amnes illum medii, non ardua tardant ; Perdita nec seræ meminit concedere nocti." Macrob. Saturn. vi. 2. Compare Virg. Ec. viii. 88. Georg. iii. 254. Of the Panegyric on Augustus, two lines are supposed to be preserved in Horat. Epist. 1. xvi. 27, 28. Weichert, De Lucio Vario. Compare Of the Thyestes of Varius some imperfect fragments only remain; the longest reduced to prose. But the Tragedy appears to have been extant in the eighth century. A MS. which contained it was written over with the Origines of S. Isidore This MS., now in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, not merely gives the name of the Tragedy, but adds the date of its representation, at the games after the battle of Actium. The author received for it " sestertium deciens," £8,072 8s. 4d. Schneidewin in Rheinisches Museum. Orelli, note on Carm. 1. vii. In the Autumn of last year (1847) I took the opportunity of inspecting this MS. To my eyes, unpractised in such reading, it was not more curious than perplexing. The writing of this remarkable passage, very clear and distinct, seemed to me absolutely the same with that of the text of Isidore which preceded and followed it, part of a grammatical treatise. It was an entirely insulated paragraph, as to its meaning; but the characters and writing appeared continuous. The solution which occurred was that it was not a Palimpsest (and of this there appeared no evidence), but a copy of a Palimpsest by an ignorant scribe, who had supposed some lines on the top of the page, imperfectly erased, to be part of his author's text. On Varius. Weichert de Lucio Vario. VARRO TERENTIUS ATACINUS. - Sat. I. x. 46. He was called Atacinus from Atax (Aude) in Gaul, the scene |