It is reported that he was immoderately addicted to venery. [For he is
said to have had obscene pictures so disposed in a bedchamber lined with
mirrors, that, whichever way he looked, lascivious images might present
themselves to his view.] [971] He lived for the most part in the
retirement of his farm [972], on the confines of the Sabine and Tiburtine
territories, and his house is shewn in the neighbourhood of a little wood
not far from Tibur. Some Elegies ascribed to him, and a prose Epistle
apparently written to commend himself to Mecaenas, have been handed down
to us; but I believe that neither of them are genuine works of his; for
the Elegies are commonplace, and the Epistle is wanting in perspicuity, a
fault which cannot be imputed to his style. He was born on the sixth of
the ides of December [27th December], in the consulship of Lucius Cotta
[973] and Lucius Torquatus; and died on the fifth of the calends of
December [27th November], in the consulship of Caius Marcius Censorinus
and Caius Asinius Gallus [974]; having completed his fifty-ninth year.
He made a nuncupatory will, declaring Augustus his heir, not being able,
from the violence of his disorder, to sign one in due form. He was
interred and lies buried on the skirts of the Esquiline Hill, near the
tomb of Mecaenas. [975]

(544) M. ANNAEUS LUCANUS, a native of Corduba [976], first tried the
powers of his genius in an encomium on Nero, at the Quinquennial games.
He afterwards recited his poem on the Civil War carried on between Pompey
and Caesar. His vanity was so immense, and he gave such liberty to his
tongue, that in some preface, comparing his age and his first efforts
with those of Virgil, he had the assurance to say: "And what now remains
for me is to deal with a gnat." In his early youth, after being long
informed of the sort of life his father led in the country, in
consequence of an unhappy marriage [977], he was recalled from Athens by