Return the world its form and leave it fixed?[76]
Various mythological tales are inserted with a view to enlivening the poem, but the author lacks narrative skill. The most elaborate of these episodes, in which the story of Perseus and Andromeda is told,[77] shows, however, good descriptive ability and lively rhetoric. Manilius is not a great poet, but he treats, not without success, a subject new to Roman poetry, and shows himself to be a man of original power of mind and of serious purpose. With all its defects, the Astronomica has also great merits.
Many Augustan poets are known by name whose works have perished. On the other hand, some poems by unknown authors are preserved. Priapea. A curious collection of eighty short poems in elegiac and lyric metres, all addressed to the god Priapus, or at least written with reference to him, belongs for the most part to this period. Statues of Priapus, the god of gardens and of fruitfulness of all sorts, were set up in public parks, in orchards, and other places, and most of the Priapea, as these short poems are called, are supposed to have been inscribed upon or affixed to such statues. Many of the poems are extremely indecent, but many are well written and witty.
Far more interesting than the Priapea are the poems falsely ascribed to Virgil, and contained in manuscripts of his works. Culex. Three of these are “epyllia,” or short epics, composed, like Virgil’s genuine works, in hexameter verse. The first, entitled Culex, “The Gnat,” tells in four hundred and fourteen lines how a herdsman, lying asleep in the noonday heat, was on the point of being killed by a poisonous serpent, when a gnat stung him, and, by arousing him to his danger, saved his life. As he awoke, the herdsman killed the gnat, whose soul afterward appears to him in a dream and reproaches him. Finally the herdsman erects a funeral mound in honor of the gnat. The poem is a mock epic, intended to be humorous, but is not very successful. In versification it shows great similarity to the genuine works of Virgil, but also in some respects to those of Ovid. A poem entitled Culex is ascribed to Virgil’s youthful days by Martial and Statius, but the metrical qualities of the existing poem show that it can not have been written until a later date. Either, therefore, Martial and Statius were mistaken, or this is not the poem to which they refer.
The second piece, entitled Ciris, is a little longer than the Culex. Ciris. This poem, evidently written by some member of the circle of Messalla, tells the story of Scylla, who caused the death of her father, Nisus, and betrayed her native town, on account of her love for Minos, the leader of an invading army. She was dragged through the water at the stern of a vessel, but the gods pitied her and changed her into a seabird called ciris. Her father was restored to life and made a sea eagle. Moretum. The third poem, the Moretum (the word denotes a sort of salad eaten by the peasants), contains only one hundred and twenty-four lines. It is a slight poem, idyllic in character, and admirably written. It describes how a poor peasant and his slave, a negress, make the moretum in the early morning. This poem is said to be an imitation of a Greek original by Parthenius. It is possible, though not probable, that it is by Virgil. Copa. The fourth poem is the Copa (barmaid), consisting of only thirty-eight lines of elegiac verse. It has to do with the barmaid of a wayside tavern, and is clever and interesting, but has none of the qualities of Virgil’s poems. It belongs, however, without doubt, to the Augustan period. The Diræ, which is also included in the manuscripts of Virgil, belongs, as has been said (page [63]), to an earlier time, and the Ætna belongs to the subsequent period. Ætna. This consists of six hundred and forty-six hexameters, describing volcanic eruptions, and attempting to account for them. It has little poetic merit, but shows that even an indifferent poet could write good hexameters. The remaining short poems ascribed to Virgil are of little interest or importance, though one of them—a comic ode in honor of an old muleteer—is an excellent parody of the poem of Catullus addressed to his old yacht.
Nux. Consolatio ad Liviam.The elegy entitled Nux (nut tree), and the Consolatio ad Liviam (Consolation to Livia), both ascribed to Ovid, are imitations by writers of a slightly later time, and have little merit. The Nux is the complaint of a tree on account of the bad treatment it receives from passers-by. The Consolatio ad Liviam purports to be addressed to Livia, wife of Augustus, on the death of her son Drusus, in 9 B. C.