quid me constricta spectatis fronte Catones damnatisque novae simplicitatis opus? sermonis puri non tristis gratia ridet, quodque facit populus, Candida lingua refert (132). Why gaze at me, ye Catos, with frowning brow, and damn the fresh frankness of my work? my speech is Latin undefiled, and has grace unmarred by gloom, and my candid tongue tells of what all Rome's people do. A more interesting collection of poems, probably Petronian, remains to be discussed. In addition to the numerous fragments of poetry included in the surviving excerpts from the _Satyricon_, a considerable number of epigrams, attributed with more or less certainty to Petronius, are preserved in the fragments of the _Anthologia Latina_.[322] Immediately following on the epigrams assigned to the authorship of Seneca, the Codex Vossianus Q. 86 gives sixteen epigrams,[323] each headed by the word _item_. Of these two are quoted by Fulgentius as the work of Petronius.[324] There is, therefore, especially in view of the fact that they all bear a marked family resemblance to one another, a strong presumption that all are by the author of the _Satyricon_. Further, there are eleven epigrams[325] published by Binet in his edition of Petronius[326] from a MS. originally in the cathedral library of Beauvais, but now unfortunately lost. The first of the series is quoted by Fulgentius[327] as being by Petronius, and there is no reason for doubting the accuracy of Binet or his MS.[328] as to the rest. These poems are followed by eight more epigrams,[329] the first two of which Binet attributes to Petronius on stylistic grounds, but without any MS. authority.[330] Lastly, four epigrams are preserved by a third MS. (Cod. Voss. F. III) under the title _Petronii_[331]. Of these the first two are found in the extant portions of the _Satyricon_. The evidence for the Petronian authorship of these thirty-seven poems is not conclusive. Arguments based on resemblance or divergence in points of style are somewhat precarious in the case of an author like Petronius, writing with great variety of style on a variety of subjects. But there are some very marked resemblances between certain of these poems and verses surviving in the excerpts from the Satyricon[332], and the evidence _against_ the Petronian authorship is of the slightest. A possible exception may be made in the case of the last eight epigrams preserved by Binet, though even here Binet is just enough in pointing out the resemblance of the first two of these to what is admittedly the work of Petronius. But with regard to the rest we shall run small risk in regarding them as selected from the lost books of the _Satyricon_.