Attius Labeo was a Roman writer during the reign of Nero

Nero

Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

. He is remembered for the derision that greeted his Latin translations of Homer's Iliad

Iliad

The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

and Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

, which came to epitomise bad verse. He translated the original Greek into Latin hexameters. The satirist Persius poured scorn on Labeo. Later his name was used by English poets of the Elizabethan era

Elizabethan era

The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...

 to attack each other's verse.

Work

His writings have not survived, but a single line of his translation has been preserved in scholia: "crudum manduces Priamum Priamique pisinnos", which was intended to translate the words - ὠμòν ßεßρώΘοις Πρίαμον Πριάμοιó τε παîδας (Iliad, iv, 35). On the basis of this surviving line, it has been suggested that the translation was considered to be vulgar, since the words 'manduces' and 'pisinnos' would have "undoubtedly struck Romans as exotically 'low'". In English the line means, roughly, "Raw, you'd chew both Priam and Priam's kids."

Persius

Persius, a contemporary of the translator, refers to Labeo in his Satires as the epitome of a bad poet, mentioning him in his discussion of his reasons for taking up his pen:

O curas hominum! o quantum est in rebus inane!

"Quis leget haec?" min tu istud ais? Nemo hercule. "Nemo?"

Vel duo, vel nemo. "Turpe et miserabile." Quare?

Ne mihi Polydamas et Troĩades Labeonem

Praetulerint? Nugae!

RGM Nesbitt translates these lines as: "The toils of men! The emptiness of life! 'Who's going to read that?' Are you talking to me? Nobody, of course. 'Nobody?' Well, two at the most. 'That's a poor show.' Why? Because Polydamas and the Trojan Women may prefer Labeo to me? Bosh." Polydamas was a Trojan leader in the Iliad characterised by his timidity.

Persius also says that Labeo must have made the translation while "drunk with hellebore" (ebria ueratro).

English satire

Following Persius' use of the name, Elizabethan English satirists used the name "Labeo" as a code for a bad poet. "Labeo" appears in Joseph Hall's Satires, in which he is accused of writing bad pastoral, erotic and heroic verse, evidently a reference to a poet of the time. The identity of Hall's "Labeo" is disputed. It has been suggested that Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton

Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era.-Early life:He was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. Almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham,...

 may be the target. Samuel Daniel

Samuel Daniel

Samuel Daniel was an English poet and historian.-Early life:Daniel was born near Taunton in Somerset, the son of a music-master. He was the brother of lutenist and composer John Danyel. Their sister Rosa was Edmund Spenser's model for Rosalind in his The Shepherd's Calendar; she eventually married...

 has also been suggested. However, it has been argued that Hall's "Labeo" is a composite figure, standing for the vugarity of modern poetry, as Hall saw it.

Likewise, John Marston

John Marston

John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods...

 mentions "Labeo" in Pygmalion's Image, which includes the words, "So Labeo did complain his love was stone,/Obdurate, flinty, so relentless none." It may be that this use of the "Labeo" persona is an attack on Shakespeare, since the lines resemble a passage in Venus and Adonis

Venus and Adonis (Shakespeare poem)

Venus and Adonis is a poem by William Shakespeare, written in 1592–1593, with a plot based on passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is a complex, kaleidoscopic work, using constantly shifting tone and perspective to present contrasting views of the nature of love.-Publication:Venus and Adonis was...

.

John Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

in an early essay quotes Persius on Labeo, referring to academic rivalries,

So provocative of animosity, even in the home of learning, is the rivalry of those who pursue different studies or whose opinions differ concerning the studies they pursue in common. However, I care not if "Polydamas and the women of Troy prefer Labeo to me;--a trifle this".