FLACCUS, Caius Valerius, Ica'yus leri-us flak'us, Roman poet of the latter half of the 1st century. Very little is known about him definitely, except that he died about 90 A.D. in which year Quintilian laments his recent death. Some authorities add Setinus Balbus to his name, but it is doubtful whether these two words were really part of his name, though they appear on a manuscript of his work in the Vatican. He is also frequently confused with a poet friend of Martial. He sung the expedi tion of the Argonauts in an epic poem, (Argo nautica,) of which seven books and part of the eighth have remained to us. It is partly a translation and partly an imitation of a sim ilar work by Apollonius of Rhodes. It was dedicated to Vespasian and apparently took him at least 10 years to write. The estimates of his work vary greatly. He has little originality and is most of the time deadly monotonous and very artificial. On the other hand his Latin is pure, and both in style and versification he is very nearly perfect. His work is comparatively unknown, though there are a number of edi tions (Bologna 1474; Florence 1503; Paris 1519; Venice 1523, etc.). More recent editions are by Walker, W. S. (London 1848); Thilo, G. (Halle 1863) ; Schenke, C. (Berlin 1871); Baehrens, H. (Leipzig 1875); Lanzen, P. (Ber
lin 1896). It has been translated into French (Paris 1811, 1826, 1850); German (Erfurt 1805); Hungarian (Pesth 1873); Italian (Milan 1731, 1754; Verona 1776) •, Spanish (Madrid 1868-69). Of English translations the following should be mentioned: Noble, T., The First Book of Argonautica) (in (Black heath, etc.,' London 1808) ; Pinder, N., 'Selec tions from the Less Known Latin Poets> (in 'Clarendon Press Series,' Oxford 1869) ; a new translation of the complete work has been begun by H. G. Blomfield of which the first volume has appeared so far: Valerius Flaccus, Caius, 'The Argonautica' (Oxford 1916). Consult Butler, H. E., 'Post-Augustan Poetry> (London 1909) ; Harmand, R., 'De Valerio Flacco Apollonii Rhodii Imitatore, etc.' (Nancy 1898) ; Merivale, C., 'History of the Romans under the Empire> (7 vols., London 1852-62) ; Peters, J. V., 'De Caii Valerii Flacci Vita et Carmine> (Konigsberg 1890) ; Samuel son, J.,' in Valerium Flaccum) (Upsala 1899) ; Schenkl, K., 'Studien zu den Argo nautica des V. Flaccus> (in Kaiserliche Aka demie der Wissenschaften, Philos.-Hist. Classe, Sitzungsberichte, Vol. LXVIII, p. 271, Vienna 1871) ; Summers, W. C., 'Study of the Argo nautica of Valerius Flaccus> (Cambridge 1894).