CAESIUS

BASSUS  , a Roman lyric poet, who lived in the reign of Nero . He was the intimate friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works he edited (Schol. on Persius, vi . 1) . He is said to have lost his life in the eruption of Vesuvius (79) . He had a great reputation as a poet; Quintilian (Instit. x. i . 96) goes so far as to say that, with the exception of Horace, he was the only lyric poet worth reading . He is also identified with the author of a treatise De Metris, of which considerable fragments, probably of an abbreviated edition, are extant (ed . Keil, 1885) . The work was probably originally in verse, and afterwards recast or epitomized in prose form to be used as an instruction book . A worthless and scanty aocpunt of some of the metres of Horace (in Kell, Grammatici Latin, vi . 305), bearing the title Ars Caesii Bassi de Metris is not by him, but chiefly borrowed by its unknown author from the treatise, mentioned above .