We have already remarked[45] that Ennius scientifically inculcated the same irreligion in a didactic poem of his own; and it is evident that he was in earnest with this freethinking. With this trait other features are quite accordant - his political opposition tinged with radicalism, that here and there appears[46]; his singing the praises of the Greek pleasures of the table[47]; above all his setting aside the last national element in Latin poetry, the Saturnian measure, and substituting for it the Greek hexameter. That the "multiform" poet executed all these tasks with equal neatness, that he elaborated hexameters out of a language of by no means dactylic structure, and that without checking the natural flow of his style he moved with confidence and freedom amidst unwonted measures and forms - are so many evidences of his extraordinary plastic talent, which was in fact more Greek than Roman[48]; where he offends us, the offence is owing much more frequently to Greek alliteration[49] than to Roman ruggedness. He was not a great poet, but a man of graceful and sprightly talent, throughout possessing the vivid sensibilities of a poetic nature, but needing the tragic buskin to feel himself a poet and wholly destitute of the comic vein. We can understand the pride with which the Hellenizing poet looked down on those rude strains
and the enthusiasm with which he celebrates his own artistic poetry:
The clever man had an instinctive assurance that he had spread his sails to a prosperous breeze; Greek tragedy became, and thenceforth remained, a possession of the Latin nation.
Through less frequented paths, and with a less favourable wind, a bolder mariner pursued a higher aim. Naevius not only like Ennius - although with far less success - adapted Greek tragedies for the Roman stage, but also attempted to create, independently of the Greeks, a grave national drama (fabula praetextata). No outward obstacles here stood in the way; he brought forward subjects both from Roman legend and from the contemporary history of the country on the stage of his native land. Such were his Nursing of Romulus and Remus or the Wolf, in which Amulius king of Alba appeared, and his Clastidium, which celebrated the victory of Marcellus over the Celts in 532.(49) After his example, Ennius in his Ambracia described from personal observation the siege of that city by his patron Nobilior in 565[50]. But the number of these national dramas remained small, and that species of composition soon disappeared from the stage; the scanty legend and the colourless history of Rome were unable permanently to compete with the rich cycle of Hellenic legends. Respecting the poetic value of the pieces we have no longer the means of judging; but, if we may take account of the general poetical intention, there were in Roman literature few such strokes of genius as the creation of a Roman national drama. Only the Greek tragedians of that earliest period which still felt itself nearer to the gods - only poets like Phrynichus and Aeschylus - had the courage to bring the great deeds which they had witnessed, and in which they had borne a part, on the stage by the side of those of legendary times; and here, if anywhere, we are enabled vividly to realize what the Punic wars were and how powerful was their effect, when we find a poet, who like Aeschylus had himself fought in the battles which he sang, introducing the kings and consuls of Rome upon that stage on which men had hitherto been accustomed to see none but gods and heroes.
Recitative poetry also took its rise during this epoch at Rome. Livius naturalized the custom which among the ancients held the place of our modern publication - the public reading of new works by the author - in Rome, at least to the extent of reciting them in his school. As poetry was not in this instance practised with a view to a livelihood, or at any rate not directly so, this branch of it was not regarded by public opinion with such disfavour as writing for the stage: towards the end of this epoch one or two Romans of quality had publicly come forward in this manner as poets[51]. Recitative poetry however was chiefly cultivated by those poets who occupied themselves with writing for the stage, and the former held a subordinate place as compared with the latter; in fact, a public to which read poetry might address itself can have existed only to a very limited extent at this period in Rome.
45. III. XII. Irreligious Spirit.
46. In the
47. III. XIII. Luxury.
48. The following verses, excellent in matter and form, belong to the adaptation of the
In the -Scipio-, which was probably incorporated in the collection of miscellaneous poems, the graphic lines occurred:
This last passage affords us a glimpse of the way in which the poet worked up his original poems. It is simply an expansion of the words which occur in the tragedy
and the incident is derived from the Iliad (xxi. 381).
49. Thus in the Phoenix we find the line:
and this is not the most absurd specimen of such recurring assonances. He also indulged in acrostic verses (Cic. de Div. ii. 54, iii).