33. VINDICAT VT CALAMIS LAVDEM QVOS FECIT EQVORVM. 'As Calamis lays claim to the praise given his horses'. Calamis, a sculptor of the fifth century BC, was particularly famous for his statues of horses; see Pliny NH XXXIV 71 'habet simulacrum et benignitas eius ['Praxiteles' generosity is seen in one of his statues']; Calamidis enim quadrigae aurigam suum imposuit, ne melior in equorum effigie defecisse in homine crederetur. ipse Calamis et alias quadrigas bigasque fecit equis sine aemulo expressis'.
33. QVOS FECIT EQVORVM. Similar instances of hyperbaton at 28 'quod fecit quisque tuetur opus', Met IV 803 'pectore in aduerso quos fecit sustinet angues', and Fast VI 20 'tum dea quos fecit sustulit ipsa metus'.
34. VT SIMILIS VERAE VACCA MYRONIS OPVS. The Cow of Myron (late fifth century BC) was his most famous work. Praise of the statue's lifelike appearance was a stock theme of Hellenistic writers of epigram; it appears from Pliny NH XXXIV 57 that the poetry written about the statue was as notable as the statue itself. Thirty-six poems of the Palatine Anthology deal with the theme (IX 713-42 & 793-98). Ausonius wrote eight epigrams on the same subject (Ep LXVIII-LXXV), of which I quote LXVIII as a typical example of what both the Greek and Latin epigrams are like:
Bucula sum, caelo ['chisel'] genitoris facta Myronis
aerea: nec factam me puto, sed genitam,
sic me taurus init, sic proxima bucula mugit,
sic uitulus sitiens ubera nostra petit.
miraris quod fallo gregem? gregis ipse magister
inter pascentes me numerare solet.
The statue was in Athens during Cicero's lifetime (II Verr IV 135); Ovid is likely to have seen it during his visit to the city (Tr I ii 77). He would certainly have seen the four statues of cattle sculpted by Myron which Augustus placed in his temple of Apollo, and which Propertius described: 'atque aram circum steterant armenta Myronis, / quattuor artificis, uiuida signa, boues' (II xxxi 7-8).
35. VLTIMA. 'Smallest, least important'. For this rare sense compare Hor Ep I xvii 35 'principibus placuisse uiris non ultima laus est', Cons ad Liuiam 44 'ultima sit laudes inter ut illa tuas', Vell Pat I 11 1, and the other instances cited by OLD ultimus 9.
35. SVM ('I am not the least of your possessions') seems unobjectionable enough; most editors have, however, accepted PARS from the excerpta Politiani.
36. MVNVS OPVSQVE is a Latin phrase with the general meaning of 'creation'. It is used in this sense at Cic Tusc I 70 'haec igitur et alia innumerabilia cum cernimus, possumusne dubitare quin iis praesit aliquis uel effector ... uel ... moderator tanti operis et muneris?', ND II 90, Off III 4 'nulla enim eius ingenii [sc Africani] monumenta mandata litteris, nullum opus otii, nullum solitudinis munus extat', and Met VII 435-36 (to Theseus) 'quodque suis securus arat Cromyona colonus, / munus opusque tuum est'.