SOURCE: Abbott, Frank Frost. “A Roman Puritan.” In Society and Politics in Ancient Rome: Essays and Sketches, pp. 131-44. New York: Biblo and Tannen, 1963.

In the following essay, originally published in 1909, Abbott finds similarities between the ideas of Persius and those inherent in New England Puritanism.

One ventures with some diffidence upon the task of discussing the work of an author like the Roman poet Persius, whose writings are not widely known and are not highly esteemed by many who know them. But the obscurity in which Persius languishes is, it seems to me, undeserved; for his poetry has an intrinsic value; he speaks for a class of men who have made a deep impression upon history; and any knowledge which we may gain of the influences at work in the first century of our era, in which his lot was cast, will doubtless always be of special...