Page:Aratus The Phenomena and Diosemeia.pdf/14

6 to us. From this specimen of the great prose writer's muse we certainly should not rank him among the first class of poets; but it must be remembered, that he produced his work while yet he was a very young man, and the Latin language had not acquired that perfection to which the writers of the Augustan age advanced it.

The celebrated Germanicus Cæsar, son of Antonia, the niece of Augustus, amused the leisure hours of his military campaigns by translating the Phenomena. His version, in elegant Latin hexameters, gives him no humble rank among the poets of the Augustan age. He does not seem to have attempted the Diosemeia: it was either less inviting to his muse, or leisure might be wanting for the undertaking.

At a later period, in the fourth century of the Christian æra, Festus Avienus rendered the Phenomena and Diosemeia into Latin hexameters. His version is far more diffuse than the original, and assumes the character of a poetical paraphrase of Aratus. He considerably enlarges upon the text, follows out the fables, and occasionally adds fresh