Pomponius Secundus
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Publius Pomponius Secundus [1] was a Roman general and tragic poet who lived during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius. He is sometimes identified as a Calvisius.
[edit] Biographical details
Secundus was on intimate terms with the elder Pliny, who wrote a biography of him, now lost. The chief authority for his life is Tacitus, according to whom Secundus was a man of refinement and brilliant intellect. His friendship with Sejanus and his brother made him politically suspect, and he was forced to become practically a prisoner in his own brother's (Lucius Pomponius Secundus) house, until the accession of Caligula.
During his enforced retirement he composed tragedies, which were put on the stage during the reign of Claudius. Quintilian asserts that he was far superior to any writer of tragedies he had known, and Tacitus expresses a high opinion of his literary abilities. Secundus devoted much attention to the niceties of grammar and style, on which he was recognized as an authority. Only a few lines of his work remain, some of which belong to the tragedy Aeneas.
In AD 50 he led an army against the Chatti, who were raiding Germania Superior in 50 and defeated them decisively, for which he was granted an ovation by the emperor Claudius.[2] After this clash, Secundus' men liberated a number of Roman prisoners that had been held by the Chatti, among whom were found some survivors of the Varian disaster forty years prior.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Manuel Dejante Pinto de Magalhães Arnao Metello and João Carlos Metello de Nápoles, "Metellos de Portugal, Brasil e Roma", Torres Novas, 1998. He is wrongly called Lucius.
- ^ Tacitus, Annales (xii.28)
- ^ Tacitus, Annales (xii.27)
- Otto Ribbeck, Geschichte der römischen Dichtung, iii. (1892). and Tragicorum Romanorum fragmenta (1897)
- Tacitus, Annals, v. 8, x. 13, xi. 28
- Quintilian, Inst. Orat. x. I. 98
- Pliny, Nat. Hist. xiv. 5
- Martin Schanz, Geschichte der römischen Literatur, ii. 2 (1900)
- Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel, History of Roman Literature (Eng. trans., 1900), 284, 7.
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
