Attius Labeo (active 1st century AD) was a Roman writer during the reign of Nero.
He is remembered for the derision that greeted his Latin translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, which came to epitomise bad verse.
His writings have not survived, but a single line of his translation has been preserved in scholia: "crudum manduces Priamum Priamique pisinnos", which was Labeo's translation of the words - ὠμòν ßεßρώΘοις Πρίαμον Πριάμοιó τε παîδας (Iliad, iv, 35).
[1][2] On the basis of this surviving line, it has been suggested that the translation was considered to be vulgar, since the words 'manduces' and 'pisinnos' would have "undoubtedly struck Romans as exotically 'low'".
Persius, a contemporary of the translator, refers to Labeo in his Satires as the epitome of a bad poet, mentioning him in his discussion of his reasons for taking up his pen: O curas hominum!
"Labeo" appears in Joseph Hall's Satires, in which he is accused of writing bad pastoral, erotic and heroic verse, evidently a reference to poetry of the time.
In the view of Oscar James Campbell, "The English Labeo is best regarded as a type figure representing each and every one of the assiduous and tasteless Elizabethan translators.
[8] John Milton in an early essay quotes Persius on Labeo, referring to academic rivalries,