MARSUS

marsus, domitius, latin poet, the friend of virgil and tibullus, and contemporary of horace. he survived tibullus (d. 19 b.c.), but was no longer alive when ovid wrote (c. a.d. 12) the epistle from pontus (_ex ponto_, iv. 16) containing a list of poets. he was the author of a collection of epigrams called _cicuta_ ("hemlock")[1] from their bitter sarcasm, and of a beautiful epitaph on the death of tibullus; of elegiac poems, probably of an erotic character; of an epic poem _amazonis_; and of a prose work on wit (_de urbanitate_). martial often alludes to marsus as one of his predecessors, but he is never mentioned by horace, although a passage in the _odes_ (iv. 4, 19) is supposed to be an indirect allusion to the _amazonis_ (m. haupt, _opuscula_, iii. 332). see j. a. weichert, _poetarum latinorum vitae et reliquiae_ (1830); r. unger, _de dom. marsi cicuta_ (friedland, 1861). footnote: [1] according to others, a reed-pipe made of the stalks of hemlock; the reading _scutica_ ("whip") has also been proposed.