a fragmentary
condition. Ovid wrote this towards the end of his life.

Pliny, _N.H._ xxxii. 152, 'His adiciemus ab Ovidio posita nomina quae
apud neminem alium reperiuntur, sed fortassis in Ponto nascentium, ubi
id volumen supremis suis temporibus incohavit.'

MANILIUS.

Manilius is not mentioned by any other writer, and his own poem gives
no particulars of his life. There is uncertainty even as to the true
form of his name, the MSS. giving variously M. Mallius, Manlius, or
Manilius, with the addition in one case of EQOM (probably = equitis
Romani). In some MSS. the poem is wrongly attributed to Aratus or
Boetius, both of whom wrote on the same subject as Manilius.

Bentley conjectured that Manilius was an Asiatic Greek, but the poet
speaks of Latin as 'nostra lingua' (ii. 889), while Greek is 'externa
lingua' (iii. 40), and he uses no Greek constructions.

His poem, the _Astronomica_, in its present form, consists of five
Books of hexameter verse: probably a sixth Book has been lost. It may
have been wholly composed in the reign of Tiberius, or begun under
Augustus. Book v. was written under Tiberius, if the burning of
Pompey's theatre in A.D. 22 is alluded to in ll. 513-515. The earlier
Books contain nothing which might not have been written after the
death of Augustus--the allusions to the disaster of Varus in A.D. 9
(i. 899), and to the sojourn of Tiberius at Rhodes (iv. 764). Either
Augustus or Tiberius may be the 'Caesar' of i. 7 and i. 386. On the
other hand, if Ovid is referring to Manilius (as Prof. Ellis suggests)
in _Tr._ ii. 485,

'Ecce canit formas alius iactusque pilarum,
hic artem nandi praecipit, ille trochi,'

it would follow that the whole poem had been published before the
death of Augustus, for the descriptions of ball-play and swimming
occur in v. 165-171 and 420-431.

Astronomy is treated only in Book i.; the rest of the poem is devoted
to astrology. This is in accordance with the author's statement of his
theme (i. 1-3), which he was the first Roman to treat in verse (i. 4,
113, ii. 57). As his object is to convey instruction rather than to
give pleasure (iii. 36-39), he does not scruple to use Greek technical
terms (ii. 693, 829, 897, iii. 40). The subject does not lend itself
readily to verse (i. 20, iii. 31), and the poem is intolerably dry,
except the introductions to each Book, which reveal considerable
poetical power. The chief peculiarities of Manilius' language are his