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HORAT. ARS POET. ver. 90.

[b] It was the custom of the colonies and municipal towns, to pay
their court to some great orator at Rome, in order to obtain his
patronage, whenever they should have occasion to apply to the senate
for a redress of grievances.

[c] Domitius was another subject of tragedy, taken from the Roman
story. Who he was, does not clearly appear. Brotier thinks it was
Domitius, the avowed enemy of Julius Cæsar, who moved in the senate
for a law to recall that general from the command of the army in Gaul,
and, afterwards, on the breaking out of the civil war, fell bravely
at the battle of Pharsalia. See Suetonius, Life of Nero, section 2.
Such a character might furnish the subject of a tragedy. The Roman
poets were in the habit of enriching their drama with domestic
occurrences, and the practice was applauded by Horace.

Nec minimum meruêre decus, vestigia Græca
Ausi deserere, et celebrare domestica facta.
ARS POET. ver. 286.
No path to fame our poets left untried;
Nor small their merit, when with conscious pride
They scorn'd to take from Greece the storied theme,
But dar'd to sing their own domestic fame.
FRANCIS'S HORACE.


Section V.

[a] There were at Rome several eminent men of the name of Bassus.
With regard to the person here called Saleius Bassus, the commentators
have not been able to glean much information. Some have contended that
it was to him Persius addressed his sixth satire:

Admovit jam bruma foco te, Basse, Sabino.

But if we may believe the old scholiast, his name was CÆSIUS BASSUS, a
much admired lyric poet, who was living on his own farm, at the time
when Mount Vesuvius discharged its torrents of fire, and made the
country round a scene of desolation. The poet and his house were
overwhelmed by the eruption of the lava, which happened A. U. 832, in
the reign of Titus. Quintilian says of him (b. x. chap. 1. ), that if
after Horace any poet deserves to be mentioned, Cæsius Bassus was the
man. _Si quem adjicere velis, is erit Cæsius Bassus.