Optimal Dating Algorithms

One of three surviving collections of Latin bucolic poetry, the seven Eclogues transmitted under the name of Calpurnius Siculus are generally assigned to the reign of Nero, although the debate on dating continues, with proposals ranging between the later first and third centuries CE. Calpurnius follows Vergil's Eclogues as his main model, but reaches back to Theocritus for additional pastoral features, and the poems show the influences of later works of Vergil, Ovid, and other elegists. Two factors have made Calpurnius a "marginal" poet: the collection's lack of historical context and the status of bucolic poetry as a minor, discontinuous genre. This literary study embraces these factors as an opportunity for a de-historicized reading of Calpurnius by interpreting the poems closely and within the context of the bucolic tradition but without reference to any kind of contemporary context. In doing so, Yelena Baraz explores questions about the working of tradition in Latin poetry, but als