Palæmon, Quintus Rhemnius Fannius

, a celebrated grammarian at Rome, in the reign of Tiberius, was born of a slave at Vicenza. It is said he was first brought up in a mechanical business, but while attending his master’s son to school, he discovered so much taste for learning, and made so much progress in it, that he was thought worthy of his freedom, and became a teacher or preceptor at Rome. With his learning he joined an excellent memory, and a ready elocution; and made extempore verses, then a very popular qualification. With all this merit, his manners were very dissolute, and he was so arrogant as to assert, that learning was born when he was born, and would die when he died; and that Virgil had inserted his name in his “Eclogues” by a certain prophetic spirit; for that he, Palaemon, would infallibly become one day sole judge and arbiter of all poetry. He was excessively prodigal and lavish, and continually poor, notwithstanding the great sums he gained by teaching, and the profit he made, both by cultivating his lands, and in, the way of traffic. There is an “Ars Grammatica” ascribed to him in the edition of the “Grammatici Antiqui,” and separately printed; and a work “De Ponderibus et Mensuris,” which is more doubtful. ²