he addresses his friend, the poet Cæsius Bassus, speaks of his own pleasant life in retirement at Luna, and discusses the true use of this world’s goods. [Sidenote: Quality of the poems of Persius.] The poems of Persius were much admired by his contemporaries, and later generations, even throughout the Middle Ages, read them and wrote commentaries upon them. This admiration was due to the moral and ethical contents of the poems, though the style also no doubt pleased the perverted taste of the poet’s own times. But neither the contents nor the style merits admiration. Persius was a young man of little originality, who expressed in his poems only what he learned from his teachers. The Stoic doctrines he teaches are trite, even the examples he cites being derived from books, not from his own experience; and the style has all the faults of the period. Persius had studied Horace with diligence, and his poems are full of Horatian words and phrases, but they have nothing of the grace and charm of Horace. Persius aims at striking expressions and novelty of form. He therefore avoids as much as possible all that is natural, employs unusual words in unnatural order, and succeeds in being obscure without being profound. Few authors have so undeservedly gained long-enduring reputation. [Sidenote: Lucan.] A far abler poet was Marcus Annæus Lucanus, the nephew of Seneca. He was born at Corduba in 39 A. D., but was taken to Rome when only eight months old. There he was well-educated, especially in rhetoric, and acquired a reputation as a declaimer in Greek and Latin. One of his teachers was the philosopher Cornutus, and among his friends was Persius, whom he admired greatly. He went to Athens to complete his education, and was called back to Rome by Nero, who made him one of his circle of friends. In 60 A. D. he wrote a poem in praise of Nero, which led to his political advancement. But Nero’s favor was short-lived, either because Lucan was guilty of some impoliteness in public declaiming, or because Nero was jealous of his reputation as a poet, and forbade him to write or recite. Lucan joined the conspiracy of Piso, and was forced to commit suicide, April 30, 65 A. D.