Note 6, 1 — A. PERSIUS FLACCUS (continued 4)

1. iam: in the question implies uncertainty, ‘actually?’ ‘so?’—bruma = brevuma = brevissuma (dies), ‘the shortest day,’ ‘winter-solstice,’ ‘midwinter.’—foco: contrast between the fireside of the land of the Sabines and the open-air warmth of Liguria.—Basse: ‘Caesius Bassus, one of the intimate friends of Persius, was deputed by Cornutus to edit his Satires after his death. He is classed with Horace, as a lyric poet, by Quintilian (10, 1, 96), who, however, thinks him inferior to some of his own contemporaries, and he is probably the same with the author of a treatise on Metres, which is referred to by various grammarians, and still exists in an interpolated epitome, but different from Gabius or Gavius Bassus, who wrote works on the origin and signification of words and on the gods. Bassus was killed, according to the Scholiast, in the famous eruption of Vesuvius’ (Conington, after Jahn). See also v. 5.—Sabino: The simplicity of the Sabines has already been noted (see 1, 20), and Jahn thinks that the life about the fireside (Verg., Georg., 2, 532) is an indication of the primitive tastes of Bassus and his family. Sabino also prepares the way for tetrico (below). Comp. tetrica ac tristis disciplina Sabinorum, Liv., 1, 18 (quoted by Jahn).