Pentadius (poet)

Pentadius (fl. c. 3rd or 4th century AD) was a Latin poet of Late Antiquity. He was of North African origin, and seemingly a Christian. Two elegies and four epigrams are ascribed to him in the Anthologia Salmasiana.

Quotes

• Hic est ille, suis nimium qui credidit undis
    Narcissus vero dignus amore puer.
  cernis ab irriguo repetentem gramine ripas
    ut per quas periit crescere possit aquas.
  • This is he who trusted overmuch in the pools which were his kin—the youth Narcissus, worthy of no counterfeit love. You behold him making again from the moist meadow for the river-banks in hope of beholding the waters which wrought his doom.
  • Narcissus (Tr. J. W. Duff). The word crescere would imply his perennial growth as a flower after metamorphosis.

• Crede ratem ventis, animum ne crede puellis;
    namque est feminea tutior unda fide.
  femina nulla bona est, vel, si bona contigit una,
    nescio quo fato est res mala facta bona.
  • Trust to the winds thy barque, but to a girl
    Never thy heart's affections; for the swirl
    Of ocean wave is less to be eschewed
    Than woman's faith. No woman can be good,
    Or if a good one comes, then freakish fate
    Good out of ill has managed to create.
  • De femina (Tr. J. W. Duff). Variously ascribed to Marcus Tullius Cicero, Quintus Tullius Cicero, Ausonius and other poets besides Pentadius. See James Stinchcomb, "Literary Interests of a Roman Magnate: Quintus Tullius Cicero", The Classical Weekly, vol. 26, no. 1 (1932), p. 5

External links

• Emil Baehrens, Poetae Latini Minores, vol. 4, rev. ed. (Leipzig, 1882), pp. 343–6, 358–9

• Franz Bücheler; Alexander Riese, Anthologia latina, sive Poesis latinae supplementus, vol. 1, parts 1 and 2 (Leipzig, 1894), nos. 266, 268

• J. Wright Duff; Arnold M. Duff, Minor Latin Poets, vol. 2 (LCL, 1934), pp. 542–51