of the age! Tiberius himself, though he chiefly wrote in Greek,
occasionally turned off a copy of Latin verses; and his nephew
Germanicus, a man of much learning and culture, composed a Latin version
of the famous _Phaenomena_ of Aratus, which shows uncommon skill and
talent. Another, and a more important work of the same type, but with
more original power, and less a mere adaptation of Greek originals, is
the _Astronomica,_ ascribed on doubtful manuscript evidence to an
otherwise unknown Gaius or Marcus Manilius. This poem, from the allusions
in it to the destruction of the three legions under Varus, and the
retirement of Tiberius in Rhodes, must have been begun in the later years
of Augustus, though probably not completed till after his death. As
extant it consists of five books, the last being incomplete; the full
plan seems to have included a sixth, and would have extended the work to
about five thousand lines, or two-thirds of the length of the _De Rerum
Natura_. Next to the poem of Lucretius it is, therefore, much the largest
in bulk of extant Latin didactic poems. The oblivion into which it has
fallen is, perhaps, a little hard if one considers how much Latin poetry
of no greater merit continues to have a certain reputation, and even now
and then to be read. The author is not a great poet; but he is a writer
of real power both in thought and style. The versification of his
_Astronomica_ shows a high mastery of technique. The matter is often
prosaically handled, and often seeks relief from prosaic handling in ill-
judged flights of rhetoric; but throughout we feel a strong and original
mind, with a large power over lucid and forcible expression. In the
prologue to the third book he rejects for himself the common material for
hexameter poems, subjects from the Greek heroic cycle, or from Roman
history. His total want of narrative gift, as shown by the languor and
flatness of the elaborate episode in which he attempts to tell the story
of Perseus and Andromeda, would have been sufficient reason for this
decision; but he justifies it, in lines of much grace and feeling, as due