A series of eight short epigrams in trochaic tetrameters catalectic are found in many MSS. under the name of Florus, or, as in the Codex Thuaneus, Floridus, to which Salmasius (ad Spart. Had. 16) added a ninth, in five hexameters, ascribing the whole to Florus the historian, who was at one time believed by Wernsdorf to be the author not only of these and of the lines to Hadrian, but of the well-known Pervigilium Veneris also--an opinion which, however, he afterwards retracted. (Anthol. Lat. 1.17, 20. 3.11, 112, 113, 114, 115, 265, 291, ed. Burmann, or n. 213-221, ed. Meyer ; Wernsdorf, Poet. Lat. Min. vol. iii. p. 425, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 854.)

A curious fragment has been recently published from a Brussels MS. headed " PANNII FLORI (a corruption probably of P. ANNII) Virgilius Orator an Poeta, Incipit." The introduction only, which is in the form of a dialogue supposed to have been held about A. D. 101, has been preserved, and from this we learn that the author was a native of Africa, that he had repaired, when still almost a boy, to Rome, and had become a competitor, at the Ludi Capitolini celebrated by Domitian (A. D. 90 apparently), for the poetical prize, which had been awarded to him by the applauding shouts of the audience, but unfairly withheld by the emperor. We are farther informed that, disgusted by this disappointment, he had refused to return to his country and his kindred, had become a wanderer upon the earth, visiting in succession Sicily, Crete, Rhodes, and Egypt,--that he then returned to Italy, crossed the Alps into Gaul, proceeded on wards to the Pyrenees, finding at last repose in the city of Tarragona, and contentment in the peaceful occupation of superintending the instruction of youth. Ritschl endeavours to identify this personage with Florus the poet under Hadrian; but there seems little to support this view except the name and the fact that there is no chronological difficulty. (Rheinisches Museum, for 1841, p. 302, &c.)