Juventinus

the name attached to thirty-five distichs entitled Elegia de Philomela, containing a collection of those words which are supposed to express appropriately the sound uttered by birds, quadrupeds, and other animals. Take as a specimen, Mus avidus mintrit, velox mustecula drindit, Et grillus grillat, desticat inde sorex.

The age of the author is quite unknown, but from the last couplet in the piece it would appear that he was a Christian. Bernhardy has endeavoured to prove from Spartianus (Grundriss der Röm. Litt. p. 135), that this and other trifles of a similar description were composed by the contemporaries of the emperor Geta, the son of Septimius Severus and the brother of Caracalla. (Burman. Anthol. Lat. 5.143, or n. 233, ed. Meyer; Wernsdorf, Poet. Lat. Minores, vol. vii. p. 178. and p. 279.) [W.R]