Persius

Aulus Persius Flaccus was born in AD 34 at Volaterrae in Etruria and died young, in AD 62. A Roman of equestrian rank and a Stoic by training, he was a pupil and friend of the philosopher Cornutus, and his satires were published after his death.

His surviving work is a short prologue and six satires, dense and allusive, which mock bad poetry, empty prayers and moral laziness from a Stoic standpoint. The English here is G. G. Ramsay's prose translation in the Loeb Classical Library (1918), given without the facing Latin, his notes or his summaries.