Another poet of the Ovidian age was his trusty friend, C. Pedo Albinovanus. He was of equestrian rank,[770] and, unlike most of his contemporaries, an epic poet.[771] Ovid in his Epistles from Pontus,[772] which are addressed to him, applies to him the epithet, “Sidereus,” either because he had written an astronomical poem, or because his sublime language soared into the starry heavens. Martial speaks of him as having written epigrams which extend to the length of two pages.[773] A fragment of an epic poem, describing the voyage of Germanicus related by Tacitus, is preserved by Seneca.[774] Three elegies are usually ascribed to him; but their style is that of more modern times, and the authority for their genuineness very suspicious. A. SABINUS. Another contemporary of Ovid was A. Sabinus; and all that is known respecting him is derived from two passages in the works of the former poet.[775] In one of these,[776] he tells us that Sabinus wrote answers to six of the epistles of the Heroides. None of these, however, are extant. The three which profess to be written by him, entitled Ulysses to Penelope, Demophoon to Phyllis, and Paris to Œnone, are the work of Angelus Sabinus,[777] a philologer and poet of the fifteenth century. Two other works are attributed to him by Ovid in a passage in which he speaks of his death.[778] One of these, entitled Trœzen, was probably an epic poem, of which Theseus was the hero;[779] the other, _Dierum Opus_, was a continuation of Ovid’s Fasti. Other elegiac poets flourished at this period, such as Proculus and Montanus; but their poetical talents were of too commonplace a character to deserve special mention. They confer no obligation on literature, and contribute nothing towards the illustration of the literary character of their times. M. MANILIUS. The astronomical and astrological poem of Manilius furnishes a series of those historical problems which have never yet been satisfactorily solved. The author has been in turn confounded with every one whom Roman records mention as bearing that name, and in all cases with equally little reason. No one knows when he flourished, where he lived, and of what place he was a native. Bentley determined that he was an Asiatic; Huet that he was a Carthaginian. Internal evidence renders it most probable that he lived in the reign of Tiberius;[780] and yet neither he nor his poem are ever mentioned by any ancient author. His work was never discovered until the beginning of the fifteenth century; probably it had never been published, but only a few copies had been made, some of which have been marvellously preserved.