[Sidenote: Writers on special subjects.] The grammatical, theological, and scientific works of Publius Nigidius Figulus, who was prætor in 58 B. C., and died in banishment in 45 B. C., have little to do with literature, and are lost. Nor is it necessary to devote even a brief space to the grammatical and rhetorical works of Aurelius Opilius, Antonius Gnipho, Marcus Pompilius Andronicus, and others, whose teachings helped to inform some of the great writers and orators of the time, but whose works have not been preserved. A philologist, historian, and poet, whose writings were considered important, was Santra, who seems to have been somewhat younger than Varro, but we are now unable to determine wherein their importance consisted. Among the jurists of this period the most distinguished was Servius Sulpicius Rufus, two letters from whom are preserved in Cicero’s correspondence (_Ad Familiares_, iv, 5, and iv, 12). These give a high idea of his style, but are the only remains of his writings. All branches of knowledge, so far as they existed at that time, were treated by various writers, but a discussion of their lost works has no place in a brief history of literature. The last years of the republic are made illustrious by the great names of Lucretius, Catullus, Cicero, and Cæsar. In the Augustan age, poetry attained a still greater height of perfection with Virgil and Horace, but the age of Cicero is the golden age of Latin prose. BOOK II _THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD_ CHAPTER VIII THE PATRONS OF LITERATURE—VIRGIL Effect of the Empire upon literature—Augustus, 63 B. C.-14 A. D.—Agrippa, 63-12 B. C.—Pollio, 67 B. C.-5 A. D.—Messalla, 64 B. C.-8 A. D.—Mæcenas, 70 (?)-8 B. C.—Virgil, 70-19 B. C.—His life—The Eclogues—The Georgics—The Æneid.