Laevius

Laevius (died c. 80 BC?) was a Latin poet, of whom practically nothing is known.

The earliest reference to him is perhaps in Suetonius (De grammaticis, 3), though it is not certain that the Laevius Milissus or Melissus there referred to is the same person. Definite references do not occur before the 2nd century (Fronto, Ep. ad ~k~. Caes. i. 3; Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae ii. 24, Xii. 10, XjX. 9 Apuleius, De magic, 30; Porphyrion, Ad Horat. carm. iii. 1, 2).

Some sixty miscellaneous lines are preserved (see Bährens, Fragm. poet. rom. pp. 287–293), from which it is difficult to see how ancient critics could have regarded him as the master of Ovid or Catullus. Gellius and Ausonius state that he composed an Erotopaegnia, and in other sources he is credited with Adonis, Alcestis, Centaurs, Helena, Ino, Protesilaudamia, Sirenocirca, and Phoenix, which may, however, be only the parts of the Erotopaegnia. They were not serious poems, but light and often licentious skits on the heroic myths.

The 5th century CE Roman writer Macrobius quotes a Laevius as well, in his Saturnalia, in the context of the worship of the goddess Aphrodite. In it, Laevius compares Aphrodite to the Moon, in that both are nurturing goddesses and both have elements of gender ambiguity