Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/45

 drawn from daily life, occasionally employing dialogue, and written with a certain humour and sprightliness of style.

The Satura of the learned Varro (B.C. 116-28), as we have already seen, contained prose as well as verse (non sola carminum varietate mixtum), and according to the statement put into his mouth by Cicero (Acad. 1. ii. 8) they were written in imitation of the Greek philosopher Menippus;—

El tamen in illis veteribus nostris, quae Menippum imitati, non interpretati, quadam hilaritate conspeximus, multa admixta ex intima philosophia, multa dicta dialectice.

So too Aulus Gellius II. xviii. 10;—

''Alii quoque non pauci fuerunt qui post philosophi clari exstiteruut. Ex quibus ille Menippus fuit cuius librum M. Varro in Saturis imitatus est, quas alii Cynicas, ipse appellat Menippeas. ''

Now Menippus was a Cynic philosopher of Gadara (fl. circ. B.C. 60), who from the character of his works was distinguished by the epithet, i.e. "serio-comic," in consequence of the humorous style in which he expressed himself, one of his aims being to ridicule the folly and trifling of the pseudo-philosophers of the day. xli