BASSUS, CAESIUS, a Roman lyric poet, who lived in the reign of Nero. He was the friend of Persius, who dedicated his sixth satire to him, and whose works he edited (Schol. on Persius, vi. i.). He is said to have lost his life in the eruption of Vesuvius (79). He had a great reputation as a poet (Quintilian, Instit., x. i. 96). He is also identified with the author of a treatise De Metris, of which considerable fragments are extant (ed. Keil, 1885). The work was probably originally in verse, and afterwards epitomized in prose form. A worthless account of some of the metres of Horace (in Keil, Grammatici Latini, vi. 305 ), entitled Ars Caesii Bassi de Metris is not by him, but borrowed from his treatise.