INTRODUCTION
published than it became the rage (editum librum continuo mirari homines et diripere coeperunt). Martial vouches for its popularity;—
Saepius in libro memoratur Persius uno
Quam levis in tota Marsus Amazonide.
And the careful critic Quintilian, tells us;
Multum et verae gloriae, quamvis uno libro, Persius meruit (Inst. Or. x. i. 94).
If, then, the obscurity of Persius was unknown to his contemporaries, we must look to some other cause for its discovery; and this seems to be provided by what is evidently a spurious addition to the Biography, to the effect that the first Satire of Persius was intended as an attack upon Nero and his poetical efforts. The original text of i. 121, we are told, ran thus;—
Auricilas asini Mida rex habet;
but alarmed by the boldness of these lines, which seemed to point too plainly to Nero, Cornutus emended the line, making it read (as in the now received text)
Auricilas asini quis non habet?
a reading which, as we have already seen, gives point and meaning to the whole Satire.
