Quintus Caecilius Epirota (1st Century BC) was a freeman of Atticus, a grammarian, and the first person to initiate the public teaching of VirgilâÂÂs poetry.
Atticus had employed Epirota to teach his daughter, but he became suspicious about the tutorâÂÂs attitude towards her, and dismissed him. Epirota then found a patron in Gaius Cornelius Gallus, and after the latterâÂÂs fall set up his own independent teaching school.
Epirota is best known as the first person to discuss his contemporary, Virgil, in public and in Latin. As Suetonius records, he was âÂÂthe first to hold extempore discussions in Latin, and the first to begin the practice of reading Vergil and other recent poetsâÂÂ.