The New International Encyclopædia/Furius, Marcus Furius Bibaculus

FU′RIUS, Marcus Furius Bibaculus (c.103 B.C.—?). A Latin poet, born at Cremona. He wrote iambics, epigrams, and a poem on Cæsar's Gallic wars. “Jupiter hibermas cana nive conspuet Alpes,” the opening line in the poem on Cæsar, is parodied by Horace (Sat. II., 5, 41), who substitutes Furius for Jupiter, and speaks of the poet as pingui tentus omaso, “distended with his fat paunch.” It is probable that Furius also wrote the poem Æthiopis, containing an account of the death of Memnon, and that the turgidus Alpinus of Horace is really Bibaculus. He is compared by Diomedes with Horace and Catullus, and is enumerated among the Roman iambic poets by Quintilian (X. 1, 96). Consult: Bährens, Fragmenta Poetarum Romanorum (Leipzig, 1886); and Weichert, Dissertatio de Turgido Alpino S. M. F. Bibaculo (1822).