Hostius, was a Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 epic 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...

, who probably flourished in the 2nd century BC.

He was the author of a Bellum Histricum in at least seven books, of which only a few fragments remain. The poem is probably intended to celebrate the victory gained in 129

129 BC

Year 129 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Tuditanus and Aquillius...

 by Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus (consul and himself an annalist) over the Illyria

Illyria

In classical antiquity, Illyria was a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians....

n Iapydes

Iapydes

The Iapydes were an ancient people who dwelt north of and inland from the Liburnians, off the Adriatic coast and eastwards of the Istrian peninsula...

 (Appian

Appian

Appian of Alexandria was a Roman historian of Greek ethnicity who flourished during the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius.He was born ca. 95 in Alexandria. He tells us that, after having filled the chief offices in the province of Egypt, he went to Rome ca. 120, where he practised as...

, Illyrica, 10; Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

, epit. 59). Hostius is supposed by some to be the doctus avus alluded to in Propertius (iv. 20. 8), the real name of Propertius's Cynthia, according to Apuleius

Apuleius

Apuleius was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus . He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the...

 (Apologia x.) and the scholiasi on Juvenal (vi. 7), being Hostia (perhaps Roscia).

Fragments in F Bührens, Fragmenta poetarum Romanorum (1884); A Weichert, Poetarum Latinorum reliquiae (1830).