RABIRIUS  , a Latin epic poet of the

age of Augustus . Among the papyrus fragments discovered at Herculaneum in the early part of the 19th century were sixty-seven (mutilated) hexameters, referring to the final struggle between Antony and Octavian and the death of Cleopatra, generally supposed to be part of a poem by Rabirius, since Seneca (De Benef. vi . 3, 1) informs us that he wrote on those subjects . If genuine, they justify the qualified commendation of Quintilian rather than the exaggerated praise of Velleius Paterculus (ii . 36, 3), who couples Rabirius and Virgil as the two most eminent poets of his time . Fragments in E . Bahrens, Fragmenta Poetarum Romanorum (1885) ; W . Scott, Fragmenta Herculanensia (Oxford, 1885) ; O . Ribbeck, Geschichte der romischen Dichtung, ii . (1889) ; M . Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, (1899); Teuffel, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. trans., 1900), 252, 9 .