Note 994 — Chapter VII · CALPURNIUS SICULUS AND MINOR POETRY OF THE NERONIAN AGE

Tolkiehn, op. cit., p. 101, quotes treatises by Paul Verres (1881) and by Altenburg (1890) to suggest that the metre of Ilias Lat. is better than that of Silius’s Punica. The contention is that Silius would not have written his magnum opus in less careful style than an epitome of the Iliad. Galdi, L’epitome nella letteratura latina, 1922, p. 244, takes the view of Schanz that Il. Lat. is a free and brief rehandling of the Homeric Iliad by a dilettante fond of Virgil and Ovid (“innamorato di Virgilio e di Ovidio”). A real epitome would have had more Homeric colour.