Pomponius Porphyrion was a Latin grammar

Grammar

In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

ian and commentator on 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:...

, possibly a native of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, who flourished during the 2nd or 3rd century.

His scholia on Horace, which are still extant, mainly consist of rhetoric

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

al and grammatical explanations. We probably do not possess the original work, which must have suffered from alterations and interpolations at the hands of the copyists of the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

, but on the whole the scholia form a valuable aid to the student of Horace.

Editions

• Wilhelm Meyer
  Wilhelm Meyer (philologist)
  Wilhelm Meyer was a German classical scholar, initially a librarian and literary scholar, who worked also on musicology. He became professor of Classical and Medieval Latin Philology at the University of Göttingen...
  
   (1874) http://openlibrary.org/a/OL4484333A/Pomponius_Porphyrio
• A. Holder (1894) http://books.google.com/books?id=fL6dJ4hReR0C&lpg=PP1&dq=Pomponi%20Porfyrionis%20Commentum%20in%20Horatium%20Flaccum&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

See also C. F. Urba, Meletemata porphyrionea (1885).