23 - Minor figures

Summary

POETRY

The poetic output of Augustan times was prolific. Sadly, however, we have lost the works of several important figures – Varius, Aemilius Macer, Valgius Rufus, Domitius Marsus. Our evidence for them is poor, their fragments scanty or lacking. Nonetheless we can see that the genres were well subscribed, and of some we have considerable remains. In didactic, we have the works of Grattius and Manilius; for the minor Alexandrian forms, we can point to the Appendix Vergiliana. Horace, especially in his hexameter works, tells us a certain amount about the literary scene – about Fundanius, Titius and Iullus Antonius for instance – and Virgil's Eclogues help to reconstruct the literary atmosphere of the triumviral period, when the work of Calvus and Cinna was still in vogue, and new poets like Varius and Pollio were emerging. For later times, when the flush of enthusiasm for experiment had died away, leaving openings for reversion, or else a pale and standardized reflection of the poetics of Callimachus, our evidence is the poetry of Ovid's exile, which often gives us little more than names, but at least serves to show that verse was not in short supply at Rome. Several writers attempted more than one literary form; but in what follows, the attempt has been made as far as possible to group authors according to genre. First of all, the Appendix Vergiliana and other minor forms are discussed, especially epigram and elegy; then didactic, mythological epic and tragedy, other drama, and finally historical epic.