vatesque

Updated: August 1, 2026

He was not a great poet, but a man of graceful and sprightly talent, throughout possessing the vivid sensibilities of a poetic nature, but needing the tragic buskin to feel himself a poet and wholly destitute of the comic vein. We can understand the pride with which the Hellenizing poet looked down on those rude strains -quos olim Faunei vatesque canebant,

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5)

He was not a great poet, but a man of graceful and sprightly talent, throughout possessing the vivid sensibilities of a poetic nature, but needing the tragic buskin to feel himself a poet and wholly destitute of the comic vein. We can understand the pride with which the Hellenizing poet looked down on those rude strains -quos olim Faunei vatesque canebant,

Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome, Book III : From the Union of Italy to the Subjugation of Carthage and the Greek States