# Bavius

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**Bavius** and **Maevius** (or Mevius) were two poets in the age of [Augustus](/source/Augustus), whose names became synonymous with [bad verse](/source/Poetaster) and malicious criticism of superior writers. Both are named together in [Virgil](/source/Virgil)'s [Eclogues](/source/Eclogues) (3.90). Maevius is also the object of [Horace](/source/Horace)'s tenth [Epode](/source/Epodes_(Horace)), which invites the gods to drown him as he embarks on a sea voyage. The name M(a)evius is attested of several historical individuals, but whether Virgil's Bavius and Maevius are real writers or literary inventions is unclear.[1]

[Alexander Pope](/source/Alexander_Pope) mentions Bavius in his 1729 *[Dunciad Variorum](/source/The_Dunciad)* and explains, in a note, that he drew the reference from Virgil.[2] Pope draws a parallel between these two critics and his own dunces by quoting [John Dennis](/source/John_Dennis_(dramatist)) who thought it likely that Bavius "and Maevius had (even in *Augustus's* days) a very formidable Party at *Rome*, who thought them much superior to *Virgil* and *Horace:* For (saith he) I cannot believe they would have fix'd that eternal brand upon them, if they had not been coxcombs in more than ordinary credit" (*Dunciad Variorum*). Bavius and Maevius are also like the "dunces" in Pope's own *Dunciad* in that little is remembered of them except for their bad reputations. In the *Dunciad,* Book III, Pope has Bavius dip the [transmigrating](/source/Reincarnation) souls of poetasters in [Lethe](/source/Lethe), making them doubly stupid before being born as hack writers. In his "An Essay on Criticism," Pope writes of Maevius:

- Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools,
- And some made Coxcombs Nature meant but Fools.
- In search of Wit these lose their common Sense,
- And then turn Criticks in their own Defence.
- Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,
- Or with a Rival's or a Eunuch's spite.
- All Fools have still an Itching to deride,
- And fain wou'd be upon the Laughing Side;
- If Maevius Scribble in Apollo's spight,
- There are, who judge still worse than he can write...

Maevius also features in the [Earl of Roscommon](/source/Earl_of_Roscommon)'s "An Essay on Translated Verse" as a symbol of poetic failure:

- "Whoever vainly on his strength depends,
- Begins like Virgil, but like Maevius ends."
- (in J.E. Spingarn, ed., Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, II, p.299)

## References

1. Jan M. Ziolkowski & Michael C. J. Putnam (January 2008). [*The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years*](https://books.google.com/books?id=MpsPueOp8cUC&pg=PA200). Yale University Press. pp. 200–. ISBN 0-300-10822-2.

1. Alexander Pope & Alexander Dyce (1866). [*The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. ...*](https://books.google.com/books?id=nUA0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA151). Bell and Daldy. pp. 151–.

*N.b. material in this article is taken from the public domain 1828 edition of* Lempriere's Dictionary.

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