Is, those who wrong not with intent
Are venial; but to those that do,
Severity is surely due.”—Christopher Smart.
The three great ornaments of Nero’s reign (54-68 A.D.) were Persius the satirist, Seneca, and his nephew Lucan.
Persius.—Born at the Etruscan town of Volaterræ (34 A.D.), Persius was brought to Rome by his mother at the age of twelve, and there educated. In the Stoic, Cornu’tus, he found his ideal preceptor, and to this “best of friends” the poet pays a beautiful tribute in the following verses, among the finest he ever wrote:—
“When first I laid the purple[48] by, and free,
Yet trembling at my new-felt liberty,
Approached the hearth, and on the Lares hung
The bulla, from my willing neck unstrung;
When gay associates, sporting at my side,