Vespae Iudicium

A jeu d'esprit in Latin, probably written in the second or third century A.D. and consisting of 99 hexameters. It relates a contest between a cook and a baker with Vulcan for judge. The lines are neat and musical, and the sentiments show the writer to be a pagan in his faith and a rhetorician in his profession. A number of jokes and puns that are interspersed are rather academic in their tone. The poem is printed by Bährens in his Poet. Lat. Min. iv. 326. See Haupt, Opuscula, iii. 20.