PALÆMON, or MELICERTA. See MELICERTA.

PALÆMON, Q; Rhemnius, a famous grammarian of Rome, in the reign of Tiberius. He was born of a slave at Vienza. We are told he was first brought up in the business of a weaver; but attending his master's son to school, he used this opportunity to procure knowledge; and acquired so much skill in the common learning, that he obtained his freedom, and became a teacher or preceptor at Rome. His claim to learning cannot be questioned, since he is recorded as a scholar even by Juvenal:

Quis gremio Enceladi doctique Palaeonis affert, Quantum grammaticus meruit labor? Sat. vii.

He had also an excellent memory, a ready elocution, and could make verses extempore. On account of these qualities, notwithstanding his debauched course of life, which was such that nobody was more unworthy to have the preceptorship of youth, he held the first rank among those of his profession. But his arrogance surpassed his merit: he had the confidence to assert, that learning was born when he was born, and would die when he died; and that Virgil had inherited his name in his Eclogues by a certain prophetic spirit; for that he, Palaemon, would infallibly become one day sole judge and arbiter of all poetry. He was excessively prodigal for the gratification of his voluptuous humour; insomuch that neither the immense sums he gained by teaching, nor the great profit he made, both by cultivating his lands and in the way of traffic, proved a sufficient fund to support his extravagancies. We have only some fragments of his works.