Background
Titus Calpurnius was born in Italy.
Titus Calpurnius was born in Italy.
Hardly anything is known of the life of Calpurnius.
The time at which Calpurnius lived has been much discussed, but all the indications seem to point to the time of Nero.
The emperor is described as a handsome youth, like Mars and Apollo, whose accession marks the beginning of a new golden age, prognosticated by the appearance of a comet, doubtless the same that appeared some time before the death of Claudius; he exhibits splendid games in the amphitheatre (probably the wooden amphitheatre erected by Nero in 57); and in the words maternis causam qui vicit Iul161 (i. 45), there is a reference to the speech delivered in Greek by Nero on behalf of the Ilienses (Suetonius, Nero, 7; Tacitus, Annals, xii.
His claim is further supported by the poem De Laude Pisonis (ed.
The author of the Laus is young, of respectable family and desirous of gaining the favour of Piso as his Maecenas.
The attitude of the author of the Laus towards the subject of the panegyric seems to show less intimacy than the relations between Corydon and Meliboeus in the eclogues, and there is internal evidence that the Laus was written during the reign of Claudius.
Mention may here be made of the fragments of two short hexameter poems in an Einsiedeln MS. , obviously belonging to the time of Nero, which if not written by Calpurnius, were imitated from him.
Iulis for in ulnis according to the best MS. tradition.