[1277] Ep. cvii. 9.
[1278] Revue internat. de l’Enseignement, 1893, p. 38.
[1279] Op. cit., p. 24.
[1280] B. G. lv. 5.
[1281] Epigr. lxvii and the eight following epigrams.
[1282] Epigr. lxxi. It must be remembered, however, that such enthusiasm was very often conventional. The work was very famous in literature (cf. Pliny, N. H. xxxiv. 57 ‘Myronem ... bucula maxime nobilitavit celebratis versibus laudata’) and Ausonius’s appreciation may be worth little more than that of the thirty-six epigrams on Myron’s heifer preserved in the Greek Anthology. That the appreciation of an epigram, however, need not necessarily be artificial is proved, e.g. by iv. 54 of the Anthology of Planudes.
[1283] p. 433, Peiper’s ed. Cf. Petron. 88 ‘Myron, qui paene hominum animas ferarumque aere comprehenderat’.
Habet sepulcrum non id intus mortuum,
habet nec ipse mortuus bustum super;