Dossennus

• a Roman proper name, Plin. 14, 13, 15, § 92; id. ap. Indic. libr. 14 and 15.

or Dorsennus, an ancient Latin comic dramatist, censured by Horace on account of the exaggerated buffoonery of his characters, and the mercenary carelessness with which his pieces were hastily produced. Two lines of this author, one of them from a play named Acharistio, are quoted by Pliny in proof of the estimation in which the Romans of the olden time held perfumed wines, and his epitaph has been preserved by Seneca--

" Hospes resiste et sophiam Dosenni lege."

Munk, while he admits the existence of a Dossennus, whom he believes to have composed palliatae, maintains that this name (like that of Macchus) was appropriated to one of the standard characters in the Atellane farces. (Hor. Ep. 2.1. 173, where some of the oldest MSS. have Dorsenus ; Plin. Nat. 14.15; Senec. Epist. 89 ; Munk, de Fabulis Atellan. pp. 28, 35,122.) [W.R]

• a clown (in Plautus), H.

Fabius. A Roman comic poet and writer of Atellan fables, who enjoyed some reputation as a popular dramatist. Seneca makes mention of the inscription on his tomb, which ran as follows: Hospes resiste, et sophiam Dossenni lege ( Plin. Ep.lxxxix. 6).

One of the stock characters of the Atellanae Fabulae, and representing the typical sharper, dottore. See Vel. Longus in the Grammatici Latini (ed. Keil), vii. 79, 4; and Mommsen, Unterital. Dial. 118.