LUCIUS ANNEUS, author of the Epitome de Gestis Romanorum, was a native of Spain, or, according to others, of Gaul, and lived under the Emperors Trajan and Hadrian. A good deal of difficulty and variety of opinion prevails as to the identity of this Florus. By some writers he is thought to be the Lucius Julius Florus who lived in the time of Augustus, and to whom Horace addressed two of his epistles; but this position is hardly tenable, as Florus in the introduction to his history talks of the Emperor Trajan as then reigning. By others he is identified with the Julius Florus or Floridus, who lived in the time of Hadrian, and wrote the Perigillum Veneris, an imitation of Horace's Secular Hymn. This idea is equally gratuitous with the other. The Epitome of Florus gives a condensed view of Roman history from the foundation of the city to the closing of the temple of Janus by Augustus. The details of geography and chronology are not always to be implicitly trusted; but the general view of Roman history is striking and philosophic. The style is inflated and declamatory, and rather that of a panegyrist than of a critical historian. The Epitome is chiefly useful as a sort of substitute for the last books of Livy. The best editions of Florus are that of Titze, Prague, 1819; and that of Duker, Leipzig, 1832, which last is generally regarded as the standard edition.