FLORUS, Roman historian, flourished in the time of Trajan and Hadrian. He compiled, chiefly from Livy, a brief sketch of the history of Rome from the foundation of the city to the closing of the temple of Janus by Augustus (25 B.C.). The work, which is called _Epitome de T. Livio Bellorum omnium annorum DCC Libri duo_, is written in a bombastic and rhetorical style, and is rather a panegyric of the greatness of Rome, whose life is divided into the four periods of infancy, youth, manhood and old age. It is often wrong in geographical and chronological details; but, in spite of its faults, the book was much used in the middle ages. In the MSS. the writer is variously given as Julius Florus, Lucius Anneus Florus, or simply Annaeus Florus. From certain similarities of style he has been identified with Publius Annius Florus, poet, rhetorician and friend of Hadrian, author of a dialogue on the question whether Virgil was an orator or poet, of which the introduction has been preserved.
The best editions are by O. Jahn (1852), C. Halm (1854), which contain the fragments of the Virgilian dialogue. There is an English translation in Bohn's _Classical Library_.
FLORUS, JULIUS, poet, orator, and jurist of the Augustan age. His name has been immortalized by Horace, who dedicated to him two of his _Epistles_ (i. 3; ii. 2), from which it would appear that he composed lyrics of a light, agreeable kind. The statement of Porphyrion, the old commentator on Horace, that Florus himself wrote satires, is probably erroneous, but he may have edited selections from the earlier satirists (Ennius, Lucilius, Varro). Nothing is definitely known of his personality, except that he was one of the young men who accompanied Tiberius on his mission to settle the affairs of Armenia. He has been variously identified with Julius Florus, a distinguished orator and uncle of Julius Secundus, an intimate friend of Quintilian (_Instit_. x. 3, 13); with the leader of an insurrection of the Treviri (Tacitus, _Ann_. iii. 40); with the Postumus of Horace (_Odes_, ii. 14) and even with the historian Florus.
FLORUS, PUBLIUS ANNIUS, Roman poet and rhetorician, identified by some authorities with the historian Florus (q.v.). The introduction to a dialogue called _Virgilius orator an poëta_ is extant, in which the author (whose name is given as Publius Annius Florus) states that he was born in Africa, and at an early age took part in the literary contests on the Capitol instituted by Domitian. Having been refused a prize owing to the prejudice against African provincials, he left Rome in disgust, and after travelling for some time set up at Tarraco as a teacher of rhetoric. Here he was persuaded by an acquaintance to return to Rome, for it is generally agreed that he is the Florus who wrote the well-known lines quoted together with Hadrian's answer by Aelius Spartianus (_Hadrian_ 16). Twenty-six trochaic tetrameters, _De qualitate vitae_, and five graceful hexameters, _De rosis_, are also attributed to him. Florus is important as being the first in order of a number of 2nd-century African writers who exercised a considerable influence on Latin literature, and also the first of the _poëtae neoterici_ or _novelli_ (new-fashioned poets) of Hadrian's reign, whose special characteristic was the use of lighter and graceful metres (anapaestic and iambic dimeters), which had hitherto found little favour.