Terentianus, about 200 A. D.—Quintus Serenus Sammonicus, about 200 A. D.—Nemesianus, 283 A. D.—Reposianus, toward 300 A. D.—Vespa, late in the third century—Hosidius Geta, early in the third century—Disticha Catonis—Marius Maximus, about 165-230 A. D.—Ælius Julius Cordus, about 250 A. D.—The _Historia Augusta_—Domitius Ulpianus, killed 228 A. D.—Julius Paulus, first half of third century—Cornelius Labeo—Quintus Gargilius Martialis—Censorinus, 238 A. D.—Gaius Julius Solinus—Gaius Julius Romanus, early third century—Marius Plotius Sacerdos, latter part of third century—Aquila Romanus—Ælius Festus Aphthonius, end of third century—The panegyrists: Eumenius, Nazarius, Mamertinus, Drepanius. [Sidenote: Pagan poetry of the third century.] While Christian literature was developing in the third century the pagan literature dragged on its senile existence. There was little poetry that deserved the name, though skill in versification was not uncommon. Terentianus wrote in verse his handbook of metres about the beginning of the century, and not far from the same time Quintus Serenus Sammonicus composed a medical handbook containing sixty-three recipes in 1,107 hexameters. He does not pretend to be a physician, but derives his wisdom, such as it is, from Pliny and other writers. The recipes are of various kinds, some recommending the use of herbs in a simple and sensible way, while others prescribe more or less disgusting compounds of animal matter, and a few are nothing more nor less than magic charms. So fevers are to be cured by wearing tied to one’s neck a bone found within the enclosure of a house, and a cure for another fever is found in a piece of paper inscribed in the proper manner with the magic formula _abracadabra_, which is to be worn round the neck of the patient. To the credit of Sammonicus it should be said that his knowledge of metre is greater than his knowledge of medicine; but even that does not raise his handbook to the level of poetry. A writer of much better quality, who even deserves to be called a poet, is Marcus Aurelius Olympius Nemesianus, who wrote, in the year 283 A. D., a poem _On Hunting_ (_Cynegetica_), 325 lines of which are preserved, and who is also the author of four eclogues formerly attributed to Calpurnius (see page 188). The discussion of dogs, horses, hunting-nets, and the like in the _Cynegetica_ can hardly be called poetry, but the eclogues, though written in close imitation of Calpurnius, who was himself an imitator of Virgil, show some genuine poetic spirit. There is also some poetic beauty in the poem on the love of Mars and Venus, by Reposianus, written toward the end of the third century, but not so much can be said in praise of Vespa’s metrical argument between a baker and a cook (_Indicium Coci et Pistoris Iudice Vulcano_) as to the relative merits of their callings, or of the epigrams and “echo verses” of Pentadius.