Grosphus, Pompeius
a Sicilian of great wealth, to whom Horace addressed the ode " Otium dives," &c., in which the poet gently reprehends a too great desire for wealth in Grosphus. (Carm. 2.16.) In an epistle to Iccius, the factor or bailiff of M. Agrippa in Sicily, Horace commends Grosphus to Iccius as a man whose requests might be safely granted, since he would never ask any thing dishonorable. The turn of Horace's character of Grosphus resembles Pope's praise of Cornbury,--
" Disdain whatever Cornbury disdains."
(Hor. Ep. 1.12, 22.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.