Plotius Tucca (fl. 35 B.C.E) was aRomanpoet and close friend ofVirgil. Together withLucius Varius Rufus, he was tasked byAugustus with the editing and publication of theAeneid.[1]
Aside from notices found in secondary texts, little is known about Tucca's life. German philologist Jonathan Augustus Weichert compiles some speculative evidence for his origins and name. Citing the French classical scholarJoseph Justus Scaliger, Weichert claims that Plotius, like Virgil, was born in the Roman province ofCisalpine Gaul. He continues to add that thecognomen Tucca might have originally been transmitted as Tuceta, a reference to a type of Gallic sausage (tūcētum), drawing upon a notice found in the work ofIsaac Casaubon.[2]
Horace and the grammatical commentatorsDonatus andServius provide some of the only concrete evidence for Tucca's later life and career. In one of hisSatires, Horace implies that Tucca was a client of the influential Roman aristocratMaecenas, and he places him in a literary circle that included Varius Rufus,Valgius Rufus, and Virgil himself.[3] In the introduction to his commentary on theAeneid, Servius details the role Tucca played in the work's eventual publication. He writes that Augustus, fearing that theAeneid would be lost, charged Varius and Tucca with "emending" the text. The two were instructed to trim superfluous text but add nothing, which resulted inversiculi ("half-verses") being scattered throughout theAeneid.[4]