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taken the proper precaution, according to the precepts of the 

 Rhetoricians, to secure their benevolent attention, by his compli- 

 mentary exordium. The event exceeded his expectations. The 

 emperor expressed such gratification, that he proposed to give him 

 wliatsoever remuneration he chose to ask. The object of Oppian 

 was now attained, and he immediately asked the restoration of his 

 father. The piety of the request was pleasing to the emperor; and 

 he not only granted it, but ordered that he should receive a stater 

 for each of his verses ; a gratuity equally honourable to the genero- 

 sity of the prince, and the merits of the poet. 



The verses of Oppian, on account of their eminent success and 

 splendid reward, received the epithet of golden ; as those of Py- 

 thagoras had been honored by a similar title, for the superior praise 

 of their excellent morality. According to Suidas, he was gifted with 

 twenty thousand staters,* from which it is infeired that his verses 

 must have amounted to the same number, though little more than 

 a fourth part of them now remains. The Palatine manuscript of his 

 anonymous biographer, as quoted by Belin de Belu, says that he 

 was so enriched by the emperor's liberality, that he transcribed his 

 poems in letters of gold. 



Thus did Oppian, in the highly meritorious performance of a 

 filial duty, find himself suddenly advanced to a high elevation of 

 fame and fortune. He returned in triumph with his parents to 

 Anazarba, honored as the best of poets, and most exemplary of 

 sons. The indubitable proofs of genius which he had given, justify 



• A golden stater was equivalent to 16s. id. of our money. Two myriads, or 20,000 of 

 them would be above ^16,000, a sum far exceeding what Octavia gave to Virgil. That 

 Oppian should receive such an enormous sum is scarcely to be credited. It is not thus that 

 poets are remunerated. But it is by no means necessary to suppose that all his poems had a 

 share in the munificence of the emperor. 



