‘Deferar in vicum vendentem tus et odores
et piper et quidquid chartis amicitur ineptis.’
Again, 5, 103,
‘exclamet Melicerta perisse
frontem de rebus’;
from Hor. Ep. ii. 1, 80,
‘clament periise pudorem
cuncti paene patres.’
He even borrows Horace’s names: Pedius (1, 85), Natta (3, 31), Nerius (2, 14), Craterus (3, 65), Bestius (6, 37).
The statement of Joannes Lydus (i. 41) that Persius imitated the mimic writer, Sophron, has little to support it.
Probus says the work became immediately popular: ‘Editum librum continuo mirari homines et diripere coeperunt.’
Cf. also Quint. x. 1, 94, ‘multum et verae gloriae quamvis uno libro Persius meruit’; Mart. iv. 29, 7,
‘Saepius in libro memoratur Persius uno
quam levis in tota Marsus Amazonide.’