AULUS, a celebrated Roman satirist, was descended from an equestrian family of considerable eminence in the state, and was born at Volaterrae in Etruria, in 34 A.D. The little that we know respecting his personal history is chiefly derived from a slight sketch commonly but erroneously ascribed to Suetonius. He lost his father at an early age; and his mother, Fulvia Sisenna, removed to Rome, that her son might enjoy the best training which the imperial city could furnish. He studied first under the grammarian Rhemminus Palamon, and the rhetorician Virginius Flavus; and when he reached his sixteenth year he was placed in the school of the Stoic philosopher Annæus Cornutus, to whom he became passionately attached, and from whom he imbibed those tenets by which his writings are characterized. No less indebted was his education to Pactus Thrasea, whose noble character tended to form his mind to virtuous habits. His admiration of the Satires of Lucilius is said to have first turned his attention to the study of poetry. His character was austere, his mode of life pure and blameless, and his affection for his friends strong and unyielding. At his death in 62 A.D., he left a considerable property to his mother and sisters; and his books, which are said to have consisted of 700 volumes, he bequeathed to his friend Cornutus. The philosopher recommended to his mother that she should commit to the flames all his manuscripts except his Satires. These were accordingly preserved, and consist of one book, divided, according to some, into five Satires, and according to others, into six. These Satires are intended to expound and illustrate some favourite doctrines of the Stoics. In executing this purpose, the author is not careful to copy his incidents and examples from real life. Describing them according to an exaggerated representation in his own mind, he strains all his faculties, and employs every literary art, to make the picture correspond to his own ideal conception. Accordingly his sentences are condensed into the most pithy and concise forms; his allusions are at once short and suggestive; his passion, in its vehemence, often assumes the rugged and expressive shape of colloquialism; and his frequent use of dialogue throws a spirited and life-like effect over the whole. It would even seem that the edge of his satire, directed against the vices of Nero's reign, sometimes became so keen that it required to be concealed under obscure phrases. From this description of Persius' Satires we can easily see how Lucan, Quintilian, Martial, and others, who knew the history of the author's time, were charmed with their pungency, and how modern students and commentators who have not that knowledge are perplexed by their almost impenetrable obscurity. Persius was first printed at Rome by Ulrich Hahn about 1470. The best editions are that of Isaac Casaubon, 8vo, Paris, 1605, reprinted by Duebner, 8vo, Leipzig, 1839; that of Otto Jahn, 8vo, Leipzig, 1843; and that of Heinrich, 8vo, Leipzig, 1844. There are numerous English translations, both in prose and poetry. The best poetical versions are those of Dryden and Gifford. The latest prose translation is that which forms, along with translations of Juvenal, Sulpicia, and Lucilius, a volume of Bohn's "Classical Library."