Calpurnius
1.
A writer of mimes, not to be confounded with the pastoral poet of the same name.
2.
A Christian in the time of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, from whom we have fifty-one
Declamationes remaining.
3.
Titus Calpurnius (called Sicŭlus), a Latin poet, a native of Sicily, lived during the first century
of our era, under the emperor Nero. In the earliest editions of his works, and in all but one
of the MSS., eleven eclogues pass under his name. Ugoletus, however, at a later period,
guided by this single MS., showed that four of the eleven were the work of Nemesianus. The
Eclogues of Calpurnius are not without merit, though greatly inferior in
elegance and simplicity to Vergil's. They are dedicated to Nemesianus, his protector and
patron, for he himself was very poor. In the time of Charlemagne these pieces were placed in
the hands of young scholars. Besides these poems, which were written in imitation of Vergil's
Bucolica, there exists a poetical panegyric,
De Laude Pisonis,
which is now generally attributed to Calpurnius. Editions of this are those of Held
(Breslau, 1831), and Weber
(Marburg, 1859); of the
Eclogues, those by Glaeser
(Göttingen, 1842); with
Nemesianus by Schenkl
(Prague, 1885); and with commentary, introduction, and
appendix by Keene
(London, 1887). A good translation of the
Eclogues into English verse is that by E. L. Scott
(London,
1891). See
Einsiedeln Poems.
