The second satire is addressed to Plotius Macrinus, who, according to the scholiast, was a learned man, who 'loved Persius as his son, having studied with him in the house of Servilius Nonianus.'
224. See O. Jahn's ed., p. 240.
225. Prob. vit.'decessit VIII Kal. Dec. P. Mario, Afinio Gallio coss.' Hieronym. ad ann. 2078—62 A.D. 'Persius moritur anno aetatis XXVIII.'
226. Prob. vit.
227. Such at least is a plausible inference. Probus tells us that he used to travel abroad with Thrasea. It is a natural conjecture that these hodoeporica were in the style of Horace's journey to Brundisium.
228. Cp. Mart. i. 13; Plin. Ep. iii. 16. She was the mother of the wife of Thrasea.
229. This may mean that the last satire was actually incomplete, but that the omission of a few lines at the end gave it an appearance of completion; or that a few lines intended for the opening of a seventh satire were omitted.
230. So Probus. Cp. also Quint. x. 1. 94 'multum et verae gloriae quamvis uno libro meruit.' Mart. iv. 29. 7.
231. Hieronym. in apol. contra Rufin. i. 16 'puto quod puer legeris … commentarios … aliorum in alios, Plautum videlicet, Lucretium, Flaccum, Persium atque Lucanum.' The high moral tone of the work, coupled perhaps with the smallness of its bulk, is in the main responsible for its survival. Scholia from different sources have come down to us under the title of Cornuti commentum. Whether such a person as the commentator Cornutus existed or not is uncertain. The name may have been attached to the scholia merely to give them a spurious importance as though possessing the imprimatur of the friend and teacher of the poet.
232. The choliambi are placed after the satires by two of the three best MSS., but before them by the scholia and inferior MSS. It is of little importance which we follow. But it seems probable that Probus (see below) regarded the choliambi as a prologue. Such at least is my interpretation of sibi primo (i.e. in the prologue) mox omnibus detrectaturus. The lines have rather more force if read first and not last.