Silius Italicus

Silius Italicus (Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus) (c. AD 26–102),
Roman politician and poet, author of the Punica, an epic of 17 books on the Second Punic War (264–241 BC: see Rome (history) §1.4), at over 12,000 lines the longest poem in Latin. Before turning to the composition of poetry in retirement Silius had an outstanding public career (the evidence for his life comes from Martial's epigrams and a distinctly tepid death-notice in Pliny the Younger, Epistulae 3. 7). Zealous in prosecution under Nero, he was the last consul appointed by the emperor in AD 68, at an early age for a novus homo (first-generation senator). In the turmoil of the next year (‘the year of the four emperors’) he was engaged in tense high-level negotiations between Aulus Vitellius and [The entire page is 709 words long]

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