a slave brought to Rome some years before the downfal of the republic, and designated, according to the usual practice, from the country of his birth. He attracted attention while yet a youth, by his accomplishment and wit, was manumitted, in consequence of his pleasing talents, by his master, who probably belonged to the Clodia gens. assumed the name of Publius, from his patron, and soon became highly celebrated as a mimographer. At the splendid games exhibited by Caesar in B. C. 45, he invited all the dramatists of the day to contend with him in extemporaneous effusions upon any given theme, and no one having declined the challenge, the foreign freedman bore away the palm from every competitor, including Laberius himself, who was taunted with this defeat by the dictator : --
[W.R]
- Favente tibi me victus es, Laberi, Syro.