Domitius Marsus was a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, friend of Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 and Tibullus

Tibullus

Albius Tibullus was a Latin poet and writer of elegies.Little is known about his life. His first and second books of poetry are extant; many other texts attributed to Tibullus are of questionable origins. There are only a few references to him in later writers and a short Life of doubtful authority...

, and contemporary of Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

.

He survived Tibullus (d. 19 BC

19 BC

Year 19 BC was either a common year starting on Thursday, Friday or Saturday or a leap year starting on Thursday or Friday of the Julian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...

), but was no longer alive when Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 wrote (c. AD 12

12

Year 12 was a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Capito...

) the epistle from Pontus

Pontus

Pontus or Pontos is a historical Greek designation for a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea, located in modern-day northeastern Turkey. The name was applied to the coastal region in antiquity by the Greeks who colonized the area, and derived from the Greek name of the Black Sea: Πόντος...

 (E Ponto, iv. 16) containing a list of poets. He was the author of a collection of epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s called Cicuta ("hemlock

Cicuta

Cicuta, commonly known as water hemlock, is a small genus of four species of highly poisonous plants in the family Apiaceae. They are perennial herbaceous plants which grow up to tall, having distinctive small green or white flowers arranged in an umbrella shape . Plants in this genus may also be...

") 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

Martial

Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

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).