Domitius Marsus () was a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

, friend of

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

and

Tibullus Albius Tibullus ( BC19 BC) was a Latin poet and writer of elegies. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to him are of questionable origins. Little is known about the life of Tibullus. There are only a fe ...

, and contemporary of

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

. Citations: *J. A. Weichert, ''Poetarum latinorum vitae et reliquiae'' (1830) *R. Unger, ''De Dom. Marsi cicuta'' (Friedland, 1861) He survived Tibullus (died 19 BC), but was no longer alive when

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

wrote (''c''. 12 AD) the epistle from

Pontus Pontus or Pontos may refer to: * Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea) * Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology * Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...

(''Ex Ponto'', iv. 16) containing a list of poets. He was the author of a collection of

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, and sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word is derived from the Greek "inscription" from "to write on, to inscribe", and the literary device has been employed for over two mille ...

s called ''Cicuta'' (" hemlock") for their bitter sarcasm, and of a beautiful epitaph on the death of Tibullus; of elegiac poems, probably of an erotic character; of an epic poem ''Amazonis''; and of a prose work on wit (''De urbanitate'').

Martial Marcus Valerius Martialis (known in English as Martial ; March, between 38 and 41 AD – between 102 and 104 AD) was a Roman poet from Hispania (modern Spain) best known for his twelve books of ''Epigrams'', published in Rome between AD 86 and ...

often alluded to Marsus as one of his predecessors, but he was never mentioned by Horace, although a passage in the ''Odes'' (iv. 4, 19) is supposed to be an indirect allusion to the ''Amazonis''.M. Haupt, ''Opuscula'', iii. 332

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Domitius Marsus Roman-era poets Golden Age Latin writers 1st-century BC Romans Epigrammatists 1st-century BC Roman poets Marsus