DOMITIUS

MARSUS  , 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 (E Ponto, iv . 16) containing a list of poets . He was the authoirof a collection of epigrams called Cicuta (" hemlock " )I 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 (183o) ; R . Unger, De Dom .

Marsi cicuta (Friedland, 1861) .