Plotius Tucca (
fl 35Year 35 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.-Births:* Ban Zhao, Chinese historian* Quintilian, Roman rhetorician* November 8—Nerva, Roman Emperor-Deaths:...
BC) was a
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
poet and a friend of
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
's. He was in the circle of friends with Virgil and Maecenas, as indicated by Horace (
Satires). Virgil regarded him as senior and more admired than he himself was (Hollis 187), and Horace deemed him the preeminent writer of
epic poetryAn epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
of the 30's. According to
Donatus-People:* Aelius Donatus, a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric* Donatus , a Khan of the Eastern Black Sea Huns & beyond c. 412 AD; preceded by Uldin and succeeded by Charaton.-Churchmen:...
's
Life of Virgil, after Virgil's death, Plotius was one of two executors of Virgil's literary remains -- one of two who helped publish the
AeneidThe Aeneid is a Latin epic poem written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is written in dactylic hexameter...
on Augustus's orders (the other being Varius Rufus).
Plotius's own works are almost entirely lost.
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Plotius Tucca (
fl 35Year 35 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar.-Births:* Ban Zhao, Chinese historian* Quintilian, Roman rhetorician* November 8—Nerva, Roman Emperor-Deaths:...
BC) was a
RomanAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
poet and a friend of
VirgilPublius Vergilius Maro was a classical Roman poet, best known for three major works—the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the Aeneid—although several minor poems are also attributed to him.The son of a farmer, Virgil came to be...
's. He was in the circle of friends with Virgil and Maecenas, as indicated by Horace (
Satires). Virgil regarded him as senior and more admired than he himself was (Hollis 187), and Horace deemed him the preeminent writer of
epic poetryAn epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
of the 30's. According to
Donatus-People:* Aelius Donatus, a Roman grammarian and teacher of rhetoric* Donatus , a Khan of the Eastern Black Sea Huns & beyond c. 412 AD; preceded by Uldin and succeeded by Charaton.-Churchmen:...
's
Life of Virgil, after Virgil's death, Plotius was one of two executors of Virgil's literary remains -- one of two who helped publish the
AeneidThe Aeneid is a Latin epic poem written by Virgil in the late 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is written in dactylic hexameter...
on Augustus's orders (the other being Varius Rufus).
Plotius's own works are almost entirely lost. While Macrobius quotes one section of Plotius's
de Morte, a poem in
hexameterHexameter is a literary and poetic form, a line consisting of six metrical feet, as in the Iliad. It was the standard epic metre in Greek and became standard for Latin too. It was also used in other types of composition -- in Horace's satires, for instance, and Ovid's Metamorphoses...
, the full title of the work is unknown. It is possible that it was an epic on the death of
Julius CaesarGaius Julius Caesar , , was a Roman military and political leader. He played a critical role in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
, which would have been pleasing to the court of Augustus and Maecenas, but it is impossible to know. Hollis reports, additionally, that Tucca may have been an Epicurean. Because none of his works have survived, Plotius is known today only in connection with the poetry of Horace and Virgil.