FLORUS  ,

Roman historian, flourished in the time of Trajan and Hadrian . He compiled, chiefly from Livy, a brief sketch of the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to the closing of the temple of Janus by Augustus (25 B.C.) . The work, which is called Epitome de T . Livid Bellorum omnium annorum DCC Libri duo, is written in a bombastic and rhetorical style, and is rather a panegyric of the greatness of Rome, whose life is divided into the four periods of infancy, youth, manhood and old age . It is often wrong in geographical and chronological FLOTOW 547 details; but, in spite of its faults, the book was much used in the middle ages . In the MSS, the' writer is variously given as Julius Florus, Lucius Anneus Florus, or simply Annaeus Florus . From certain similarities of style he has been identified with Publius Annius Florus, poet, rhetorician and friend of Hadrian, author of a dialogue on the question whether Virgil was an orator or poet, of which the introduction has been preserved . The best editions are by O . Jahn (1852), C . Halm (1854), which contain the fragments of the Virgilian dialogue . There is an English translation in Bohn's Classical Library .