Juventinus Albius Ovidius was the name of the author of thirty-five distichs entitled Elegia de Philomela, containing a collection of those words which are supposed to express appropriately the sounds uttered by birds, quadrupeds, and other animals.[1] For example:
“ | Mus avidus mintrit, velox mustecula drindit,
Et grillus grillat, desticat inde sorex. |
” |
The age in which the author lived is quite unknown, but from the last couplet in the piece it would appear that he was a Christian. German philologist Gottfried Bernhardy attempted to prove from Spartianus that this and other trifles of a similar description were composed by the contemporaries of the emperor Geta, the son of Septimius Severus and the brother of Caracalla.[2][3][4]
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).