Bucolica

(τὰ Βουκολικά). Ten poems of Vergil, written B.C. 41-39, in imitation and in part translations of Theocritus (q.v.). Many allusions to contemporary history are included. In the MSS. the individual poems are called Eclogae, and are today oftenest spoken of as “the Eclogues.” A recent translation is that of S. Palmer (London, 1883). (See Vergilius.) Bucolica were also written in Greek by Bion and Moschus; and in Latin by Calpurnius Siculus (q.v.), under Nero; by Septimius Serenus (Opuscula Ruralia), of uncertain date; by Ausonius (q.v.); and by Boëthius (q.v.), whose Carmen Bucolicum has some merit. See Hunger, De Poesi Romanorum Bucolica (Halle, 1841); and W. Y. Sellar, Roman Poets of the Augustan Age (Oxford, 1883).