Albinovanus Pedo, Roman

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, flourished during the Augustan age.

He wrote Theseis, referred to in a letter from his friend Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s which are commended by Martial

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

 and an epic poem on the exploits of Germanicus

Germanicus

Germanicus Julius Caesar , commonly known as Germanicus, was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a prominent general of the early Roman Empire. He was born in Rome, Italia, and was named either Nero Claudius Drusus after his father or Tiberius Claudius Nero after his uncle...

. He had the reputation of being an excellent raconteur, and Quintilian

Quintilian

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...

 awards him qualified praise as a writer of epics.

All that remains of his works is a fragment preserved in the Suasoria of the rhetorician Seneca the Elder

Seneca the Elder

Lucius or Marcus Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Elder and Seneca the Rhetorician , was a Roman rhetorician and writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Cordoba, Hispania...

, from a description of the voyage of Germanicus (AD 16

16

Year 16 was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Taurus and Libo...

) through the river Ems to the Northern Ocean, when he was overtaken by the storm described by Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

. The cavalry commander spoken of by the historian is probably identical with the poet.

Three elegies were formerly attributed to Pedo by Scaliger

Joseph Justus Scaliger

Joseph Justus Scaliger was a French religious leader and scholar, known for expanding the notion of classical history from Greek and Ancient Roman history to include Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian history.-Early life:He was born at Agen, the tenth child and third son of Italian...

; two on the death of Maecenas (In Obitum Maecenatis and De Verbis Maecenatis moribundi), and one addressed to Livia

Livia

Livia Drusilla, , after her formal adoption into the Julian family in AD 14 also known as Julia Augusta, was a Roman empress as the third wife of the Emperor Augustus and his adviser...

 to console her for the death of her son Drusus

Nero Claudius Drusus

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus , born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a fully patrician Claudian on his father's side but his maternal grandmother was from a plebeian family...

 (Consolatio ad Liviam de Morte Drusi

Consolatio Literary Genre

The Consolatio or consolatory oration is a type of ceremonial oratory, typically used rhetorically to comfort mourners at funerals. It was one of the most popular classical rhetoric topics, and received new impetus under Renaissance humanism....

 or Epicedion Drusi, usually printed with Ovid's works); but it is now generally agreed that they are not by Pedo.

The Consolatio has been put down as late as the 15th century as the work of an Italian imitator, there being no manuscripts and no trace of the poem before the publication of the editio princeps

Editio princeps

In classical scholarship, editio princeps is a term of art. It means, roughly, the first printed edition of a work that previously had existed only in manuscripts, which could be circulated only after being copied by hand....

of Ovid in 1471.

Other sources

• E. Bahrens, Poetae Latini Minores (1879) and Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum (1886)
• Moritz Haupt
  Moritz Haupt
  Moritz Haupt , was a German philologist.He was born at Zittau, in Lusatia. His early education was mainly conducted by his father, Ernst Friedrich Haupt, burgomaster of Zittau, a man of learning who took pleasure in translating German hymns or Goethe's poems into Latin, and whose memoranda were...
  
  , Opuscula, i. (1875)
• Oskar Haube, Beitrag zur Kenntnis des Albinovanus Pedo (1880).

There is an English verse translation of the elegies by Edward Hayes Plumptre

Edward Hayes Plumptre

Edward Hayes Plumptre was an English divine and scholar, and was born in London.-Life:This son of E.H. Plumptre was born in London. A scholar of University College, Oxford, he graduated with a double-first class degree in 1844. In the same year he was elected Fellow of Brasenose College. Married...

(1907).