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Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, consul in AD 26 and for many years commander of the army of Upper Germany, was executed in 39 for conspiring against the emperor Caligula. He was also a poet, and later writers mention his light verse. This surviving fragment of three hexameters describes a region where the constellations of the spring do not bring warmth, where Bootes turns his Wain in a dry northern sky.
The lines may come from a poem about the northern lands where Gaetulicus served, though their context is uncertain. They are a rare trace of the literary activity of a leading senator and general under Tiberius, a period from which little poetry survives.
About this edition. The Latin text comes from Musisque Deoque, the digital archive of Latin poetry (edition: J. Blänsdorf, FPL, 2011), licensed CC BY-SA. Every word has been analyzed with LatinCy, a neural language model for Latin — click or tap any word for its dictionary form, part of speech, and complete morphology, together with the full entry from Lewis & Short’s A Latin Dictionary.