CALPURNIUS

Titus Calpurnius Siculus, a Roman poet, who flourished in the middle of the 1st Century A.D. At the beginning of Nero's reign he wrote seven Eclogoe, or bucolic poems, which are somewhat servile imitations of Theocritus and Vergil. The language is declamatory, but the laws of metre are strictly observed. The poet was poor, and wished his writings to be brought under the notice of the young emperor, through the instrumentality of a personage high in favour at court. This individual appears under the name of Meliboeus, and has sometimes been supposed to have been the philosopher Seneca, sometimes the Piso who was executed in 65 A.D. as the leader of a conspiracy against Nero. Calpurnius lavishes the most fulsome praises upon the emperor. Four of the Eclogoe, which were formerly attributed to Calpurnius, are now known to have been written by Nemesianus, who not only imitates Calpurnius, but plagiarizes from him.