Nemesianus' Cynegetica, compared to Grattius' Cynegeticon, show well how different a poem can be written on the same subject. This author, who wrote in the 3rd century, long after Grattius, is in many ways more conventional than him, and much less preoccupied with the gods: his opening is an address to the Muses, rather than to Diana; and when he does come to the goddess of the hunt, the invocation stands on its own, without deep thematic resonances, without anything like Grattius' ideas about piety and civilization. Something without parallel in the earlier cynegetic poet is the address to the emperors: this is a typical example of the ideology of the Roman emperor cult. Finally, there is a simile that describes the maritime god Nereus. None of these passages require much commentary; nor do they tell us much about Nemesianus when taken together. At most, one might want to say that it is unusual for a writer to have so little eccentricity; but then, the entire poem is little over 300 lines, and so significantly shorter even than Grattius' poem.
The text I use is again an English translation by Duff and Duff, which can be found in full at LacusCurtius. Nemesianus also wrote bucolic Eclogues (which I will, gods willing, discuss in the future) and may or may not have written a lost poem on fowling.
The poet proposes the subject: address to the Muses
The thousand phases of the chase I sing; its merry tasks do we reveal, its quick dashes to and fro — the battles of the quiet country-side. Already my heart is tide-swept by the frenzy the Muses1 send: Helicon bids me fare through widespread lands, and the God of Castaly presses on me, his foster-child, fresh draughts from the fount of inspiration: and, after far roaming in the open plains, sets his yoke upon the bard, holding him entangled with ivy-cluster, and guides him o'er wilds remote, where never wheel marked ground. 'Tis joy to advance in gilded car and obey the God: lo, 'tis his behest to fare across the green sward: we print our steps on virgin moss; and, though Calliope meet us pointing to easy runs along some well-known path, it is our dear resolve to set foot upon a mead where the track lies clear mid furrows hitherto untrod. For ere now who has not sung of Niobe saddened by death upon death of her children? [A long list of mythological subjects follows;] in all this ere now a band of mighty bards has forestalled us, and all the fabling of an ancient age is commonplace.
Address to the Emperors Carinus and Numerian, and then to Diana
Hereafter I will gird myself with fitter lyre to record your triumphs, you gallant sons of deified Carus, and will sing of our sea-board beneath the twin boundaries of our world, and of the subjugation, by the brothers' divine power, of nations that drink from Rhine or Tigris or from the distant source of the Arar or look upon the wells of the Nile at their birth; nor let me fail to tell what campaigns you first ended, Carinus, beneath the Northern [constellation of the] Bear with victorious hand, well-nigh outstripping even your divine father, and how your brother seized on Persia's very heart and the time-honoured citadels of Babylon, in vengeance for outrages done to the high dignity of the realms of Romulus' race. I shall record also the Parthians' feeble flight, their unopened quivers, unbent bows and unavailing arrows.
Such strains shall my Muses consecrate to you both, as soon as it is my fortune to see your blest faces, kindly divinities of this earth. Already my feelings, intolerant of slow time and disdainful of delay, anticipate the joys of my aspiration, and I fancy I already discern the majestic mien of the brothers, and therewith Rome, the illustrious senate, the generals trusted for warfare, and the marching lines of many soldiers, their brave souls stirred with devotion. The golden standards gleam radiant afar with their purple drapery, and a light breeze waves the folds of the ferocious dragons.
Only do thou, Diana, Latona's great glory, who dost roam the peaceful glade and woodland, come quickly, assume thy wonted guise, bow in hand, and hang the coloured quiver from thy shoulder; golden be the weapons, thine arrows; and let thy gleaming feet be fitted with purple buskins; let thy cloak be richly tricked with golden thread, and a belt with jewelled fastenings tighten the wrinkled tunic-folds: restrain thine entwined tresses with a band. In thy train let genial Naiads come and Dryads ripening in fresh youth and Nymphs who give the streams their water, and let the apt pupil Echo repeat the accents of thine Oreads. Goddess, arise, lead thy poet through the untrodden boscage: thee we follow; do thou disclose the wild beasts' homes and lairs. Come hither then with me, whosoever, smitten with the love of the chase, dost condemn lawsuits and panic-stricken turmoil, or dost shun the din in cities and the clash of war, or pursuest no spoils on the greedy surge of the deep.
He compares the horse breed of the North African Mazaces to the sea god Nereus
Nay, once launched across the spacious levels of the plain, with blood stirred, the steeds win fresh strength in the race, leaving by degrees their eager comrades behind. Even so, on the outburst of the winds across the blue waters of Nereus, when Thracian Boreas has uprisen o'er his cavern and with shrill howling dismayed the dreary waves, all the blasts on the troubled deep give way to him: himself aglow mid foaming din, above the billows he o'ertops them in mastery manifest upon the sea: the whole band of the Nereids is mazed in wonderment as he passes over their watery domains.
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