All that is known or that can be conjectured with plausibility in regard to this writer may be comprehended in a very few words. From the expressions of his friend Martial (1.62, 77), we learn that he was a native of Padua; from the exordium of his piece, we infer that it was addressed to Vespasian, and published while Titus was achieving the subjugation of Judea; from a notice in Quintilian, Dod well has drawn the conclusion that he must have died about A. D. 88. The lines (5.5),
whatever may be their import, are not in themselves sufficient to prove, as Pius and Heinsius imagine, that he was a member of the sacred college of the Quindecimviri; and the words Setinus Balbus, affixed to his name in certain MSS., are much too doubtful in their origin and signification to serve as the basis of any hypothesis, even if we were certain that they applied to the poet himself, and not to some commentator on the text, or to some individual who may at one time have possessed the codex which formed the archetype of a family.[W.R]
- Phoebe, mone, si Cymaeae mihi conscia vatis
- Stat casta cortina domo,