Domitius Marsus was a
Latin poet, friend of
Virgil and
Tibullus, and contemporary of
Horace.
He survived Tibullus (d.
19 BC), but was no longer alive when
Ovid wrote (c.
AD 12) the epistle from
Pontus (
E Ponto, iv. 16) containing a list of poets. He was the author of a collection of
epigrams called
Cicuta ("
hemlock") for their bitter sarcasm, and of a beautiful epitaph on the death of Tibullus; of elegiac poems, probably of an erotic character; of an epic poem
Amazonis; and of a prose work on wit (
De urbanitate).
Martial often alludes to Marsus as one of his predecessors, but he is never mentioned by Horace, although a passage in the
Odes (iv. 4, 19) is supposed to be an indirect allusion to the
Amazonis (M. Haupt,
Opuscula, iii. 332).
See JA Weichert,
Poetarum latinorum vitae et reliquiae (1830); R Unger,
De Dom. Marsi cicuta (Friedland, 1861).