Cicero and the new poetry

and for his criticism of the New Poets, of which too much perhaps has been made. Cicero's criticism consists of three brief comments, personal and incidental, the earliest in a letter to Atticus (late November 50 B.C.). The crossing to Brundisium was speedy and pleasant, he writes, with a fair wind: flauit ab Epiro lenissimus Onchesmites-an elegant spondaic hexameter in the new style, Cicero's witty improvisation, as it must be, which he invites Atticus to sell as if it were his own to any New Poet he pleases.2 It is clear that Cicero was out of sympathy with these modish young poets; he was amused, the older man of letters, and