The Death Of Astyanax: terracotta relief of the late first century B.C. or the early first century A.D. In front of a
typical theatrical backdrop (scaenae frons) tragic actors perform a scene from a Roman drama, probably the
Astyanax of Accius (second century B.C.). The same scene, in which Odysseus demands the surrender of the
child Astyanax from its mother Andromache, recurs in the Troades of Seneca (lines 707-813).
Epigram and Satire
'I have not drenched my lips in the nag's spring,' declared Persius (34-62), in disrespectful allusion to the
fountain Hippocrene, that classic symbol of poetic inspiration. Vitality came more easily to those poets who did
not burden themselves with the pretensions of the more exalted genres. Persius himself, who wrote six satires
before his early death, is a curious and intriguing figure. He describes himself as 'iunctura callidus acri' (5. 14
'clever at the pungent combining of words'): his blend of a compressed, clotted style, thick with literary allusion,
and a contorted moral seriousness makes difficult reading. He was much admired and imitated by the satirists of
the English renaissance, and the reader of Donne's satires may catch something of his odd, pungent flavour.