Persius

Daniel Hooley (University of Missouri)

Ed. by William John Dominik, University of Otago
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: Anca Dan (École Practique de Hautes Études PSL), Martine Diepenbroek (University of Johannesburg), William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Victoria Fendel (University of Oxford), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Guendalina Daniela Maria Taietti (University of Liverpool), Jula Wildberger (American University of Paris)

Dates

Born 34
Died 62
Activity 55-62

Places

Born in Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire)
Active in Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire)

Activities

Primary

Poet
Satirist

Resources

Persius' Works

Save to Bookshelf

Aules Persius Flaccus was one of four major Roman verse satirists, the others being Gaius Lucilius (168-101 (?) BCE), Quintus Horatius Flaccus (or Horace, 65-8 BCE), and Decius Iunius Iuvenalis (or Juvenal, 67-130s (?) CE). Persius, like his predecessors, and like Juvenal who followed him, wrote predominantly in the dactylic hexameters that came to identify the genre of Roman verse satire. In adopting this mainstream verse form, Persius distinguished his work from the mixed verse and prose “satires” of his near contemporaries Seneca and Petronius. But Persius' poetry is anything but conventional in its character, tone, and composition. It is, in fact, the most eccentric, dense, complex, and difficult of all extant Roman satire.

What information we have of Persius' life comes from a

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2550 words

Citation: Hooley, Daniel. "Persius". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 January 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11766, accessed 22 November 2024.]