Valgius
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Valgio Proper-name noun masculine ablative singular, Proper-name noun masculine dative singular of Valgius
- the name of a Roman gens.
- 1 T. Valgius Rufus, an epic poet, Tib. 3, 7, 180; Hor. S. 1, 10, 82.—
- 2 C. Valgius, a rhetorician, Quint. 3, 1, 8; 3, 5, 17.—
- 3 Valgius, father-in-law of Rullus, Cic. Agr. 3, 1, 3.
1. The father-in-law of Rullus, who proposed the agrarian law in the consulship of Cicero, which was opposed by the latter. It appears from Cicero that Valgius had obtained much confiscated property in the time of Sulla. (Cic. de Leg. Agr. 3.1.)
2. A. Valgius, the son of a senator, deserted the Pompeian party in the Spanish war B. C. 45, and went over to Caesar. (Auctor, B. Hisp. 13.)
3. C. Valgius Hippianus, the son of Q. Hippius, was adopted by a certain C. Valgius. (Cic. Fam. 13.76.) For details see Hippius.
1. Horace, in the tenth satire of his first book, composed, according to Bentley, not later than B. C. 38, where he defends and explains the criticism he had formerly passed upon Lucilius, ranks Valgius (b. 81) along with Varius, Maecenas and Virgil among those friends of genius and sound judgment whose approbation far more than compensated for the annoyance caused by the attacks of his detractors.
2. Again, in the ninth ode of the second book, written about B. C. 23 or 20, he endeavors to console Valgius whom he represents as giving vent in tearful strains to the grief caused by the loss of his favourite Mystes. The personage here addressed is termed by the old scholiast upon Horace " Valgium consularem."
3. Servius, in his commentary on Virgil, twice refers (ad Virg. 7.22, ad Aen. 11.457) to " Valgius in elegis." From the expressions used in the first passage we might infer that this Valgius was a contemporary of Virgil, in the second a couplet is quoted from his poems. Another couplet from " Valgius " is to be found in Isidorus (Orig. 19.4. s. v. remulcum).
4. C. Valgius appears from some Fasti to have been consul suffectus in B. C. 12. Comp. Gruter, p. ccxcviii. 1.
5. Pliny (Plin. Nat. 25.2) makes mention of a " C. Valgius eruditione spectatus," who commenced a treatise upon medicinal plants which he dedicated to Augustus, but did not complete the work.
6. In the Panegyric on Messala contained among the works of Tibullus we read (180)
" Est tibi, qui possit magnis se accingere rebus, Valgius, aeterno propior non alter Homero,"
from which it has been concluded that Valgius was the author of heroic strains. No epic poet of that name, however, is mentioned by Quintilian, nor is any notice to be discovered in the grammarians of a work which, if the above couplet be not ridiculously hyperbolical, must have attracted general attention. This circumstance, however, need occasion little surprise when we recollect that the piece in which these lines occur is believed by the best critics not to be the production of Tibullus but a rhetorical essay belonging to a much later period.
7. Philargyrius (ad Virg. Georg. 3.176) cites two hexameter lines from " Valgius " which appear to be taken from a pastoral.
8. Charisius (p. 84, ed. Putsch.) produces a verse from " Valgius in epigrammate " to illustrate the gender of the word margarita.
9. Works Valgius in Actaeone
Donatus, in his life of Terence, quotes three Iambics from Valgius in Actaeone, which affirm that Terence published, under his own name, dramas which were in reality the property of Scipio, and hence Valgius has been ranked among the writers of comedy, although there is no proof that Actaeon was a play of any kind.
10. Quintilian tells us (3.1.18, comp. 3.5.17, 5.10.4) that the precepts of the Greek rhetorician Apollodorus who gave instructions at Apollonia to Augustus (Suet. Octav. 89) may best be learned from his disciples, of whom the most diligent in translating them into Latin " fuit C. Valgius Graece Atticus." He adds that the only genuine production of Valgius upon this subject was entitled Ars edita ad Matium, that others had indeed been ascribed to him, but that he had not acknowledged them in his letter to Domitius.
11. Gellius (12.3) speaks of " Valgius Rufus " and Charisius (p. 84, ed. Putsch.) of " Valgius " as the author of some grammatical investigations called Res per epistolam quaesitae. They extended to two books at least, and probably were something of the same kind as the Epistolicae Quaestiones of Varro (Gel. 14.7).
12. Festus (s. v. secus) and Charisius (p. 116, ed. Putsch.) refer to Valgius on matters connected with grammar.
13. Diomedes (p. 382, ed. Putsch.) gives two words from " Valgius de Tralatione."
14. Finally, Seneca says (Ep. 41.1) that " Valgius " applied the epithet unicus to mount Aetna, and Charisius (p. 79, ed. Putsch.) gives an example from " Valgius " of lacte as a nominative.
It is perfectly manifest that the evidence contained in the above paragraphs is far from being sufficient to enable us to decide anything with certainty regarding the person or persons named. We may fairly surmise that the Valgius of (1) is the same with the Valgius of (2) and perhaps of (3) and (4) also. Beyond this we cannot advance without losing ourselves in a haze of dim conjecture. The assertion of Broukhusius (ad Tibull. 4.1. 80) that there were two distinguished writers in the Augustan age both named Valgius Rufus, but distinguished from each other by difference of praenomen, namely, C. Valgius Rufus, the consular and prose writer, and T. Valgius Rufus, the poet, is altogether destitute of any firm foundation, for no authority whatsoever can be adduced for the existence of a T. Valgius Rufus.
(All the matters connected with this inquiry are very fully discussed by Weichert, in his Poetarum Lat. Reliquiae (8vo. Lips. 1830, p. 203-240), who in p. 233, foll. has collected a few mutilated fragments bearing the name of Valgius.) [W.R]
See Varus.