[27] R.H. iv. 311 (note).
[28] Q. Asconius Pedianus (A.D. 3-88), probably a native of Padua, author of a commentary on Cicero’s speeches. The extant part is on Pro Cornelio de maiestate, In toga candida, In Pisonem, Pro Scauro, and Pro Milone. The commentary on the Verrines and Divinatio, which deals almost exclusively with the language, is spurious: the true Asconius confines himself to the subject-matter.
[29] The Epicurean philosophy was expounded in the writings of C. Amafinius, Rabirius, and T. Catius, whose opinions and literary style were alike distasteful to Cicero (Ac. i. 5; ad. Fam. xv. 19, 2).
[30] F. Ritschl, Opuscula, iii., p. 525.
[31] L. Schwabe, Quaest. Catull., p. 296. B. Schmidt, however (ed. of Catullus, p. 57), thinks that the Chronica are not referred to here.
[32] A life of Lucretius has been recently discovered by J. Masson (Journal of Philology, xxiii. 46), which was written by Girolamo Borgia in 1502. It gives B.C. 95-51 as the poet’s dates. Several new points were supposed to lend it a claim to authority, such as the statement that he was ‘matre natus diu sterili.’ This, however, has been shown to rest on a wrong reading of Q. Serenus Sammonicus’ Liber Medicinalis, xxxii., in a passage dealing with the barrenness of women, ‘hoc poterit magni quartus [liber] monstrare Lucreti,’ where partus, the reading of the oldest edition, was used. This, and other considerations, show that the vita does not rest on any ancient sources, beyond those which are still extant.
[33] Memmius wrote love poems (Ovid, Tr. ii. 433).
[34] Some ascribe these stories to Lenaeus, a freedman of Pompey, Sueton. Gramm. 15.
[35] Only inferior MSS. give Q., and the reading in c. 67, 12, ‘verum istud populi, fabula, Quinte, facit,’ is not to be accepted.
[36] Some critics, without sufficient proof, identify Volusius with the inferior poet Tanusius Geminus.