Professors X. — To the Latin Grammarians, Scholars of Bordeaux, Macrinus, Sucuro, Concordius, Phoebicius Ammonius, and Anastasius, Grammarian of Poictiers

Now, as the pious homage of my mournful task shall present each one, I will tell of those who, though of humble birth and rank and merit, instilled into the uncultured minds of the people of Bordeaux the love of letters.

Let Macrinus be named amongst these: to him I was entrusted first when a boy; and Sucuro, the freedman's son, temperate and well-suited to form youthful minds. You too, Concordius, were another such, you who, fleeing your country, took in exchange a chair of little profit in a foreign town. Nor must I leave unmentioned the old man Phoebicius, who, though the keeper of Belenus' temple, got no profit thereby. Yet he, sprung, as rumour goes, from the stock of the Druids of Armorica (Brittany), obtained a chair at Bordeaux by his son's help: long may his line endure!

I will sing of Ammonius also — for, indeed, it is a solemn duty to commemorate a grammarian of my own native place — who used to teach raw lads their alphabet: he had scant learning and was of an ungentle nature, and therefore — as was his due — was held in slight repute.

For Anastasius also shape a mournful lay, my Muse; and you, my dirge, recall that poor grammarian. He was born at Bordeaux, but ambition transferred him to Poictiers. There he lived a poor man, stinted alike in food and dress, and in his old age lost the faint glimmer of renown which his country and his chair had shed on him. Howbeit, I have here paid a tribute to his name, that the tomb should not swallow up his name with his bones.