Publius Annius Florus
Publius Annius Florus,
Roman poet and
rhetorician, identified by some authorities with the historian
Florus.
The introduction to a dialogue called
Virgilius orator an poeta is extant, in which the author (whose name is given as Publius Annius Florus) states that he was born in
Africa, and at an early age took part in the literary contests on the
Capitol instituted by
Domitian. Having been refused a prize owing to the prejudice against African provincials, he left Rome in disgust, and after travelling for some time set up at
Tarraco as a teacher of rhetoric.
Here he was persuaded by an acquaintance to return to Rome, for it is generally agreed that he is the Florus who wrote the well-known lines quoted together with
Hadrian's answer by
Aelius Spartianus (
Hadrian I 6). Twenty-six trochaic tetrameters,
De qualitate vitae, and five graceful hexameters,
De rosis, are also attributed to him.
Florus is important as being the first in order of a number of 2nd century African writers who exercised a considerable influence on
Latin literature, and also the first of the
poetae neoterici or
novelli (new-fashioned poets) of Hadrian's reign, whose special characteristic was the use of lighter and graceful metres (anapaestic and iambic dimeters), which had hitherto found little favour.
The little poems will be found in
E. Bahrens,
Poëtae Latini minores (1879-1883); for an unlikely identification of Florus with the author of the
Pervigilium Veneris see
E. H. O. Müller,
De P. Anino Floro poéta et de Pervigilio Veneris (1855), and, for the poet's relations with Hadrian,
Franz Eyssenhardt,
Hadrian und Florus (1882); see also
Friedrich Marx in Pauly-Wissowa's
Realencyclopädie, i. pt. 2 (1894).
