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While thus the modern literary tendency cognate to the democratic monarchy numbered secret adherents enough even among the orthodox admirers of Ennius, there were not wanting already bolder judges, who treated the native literature as disrespectfully as the senatorial politics.
The end which Ennius had set before him was two-fold, to familiarise his countrymen with Greek culture, and to enlighten their minds from error. And to this double object the great masters of Roman literature remained always faithful. With more or less power and success, Terence, Lucilius, the tragedians, and even the mimists, elevated while they amused their popular audiences.
Marcus Pacuvius, the nephew of Ennius, wrote plays for the thirty years after his uncle's death, which had an even greater vogue; he is placed by Cicero at the head of Roman tragedians.
That similitude which you are so very fond of is nothing to the purpose. Is not a dog like a wolf? And, as Ennius says, The monkey, filthiest beast, how like to man! Yet they differ in nature. No beast has more sagacity than an elephant; yet where can you find any of a larger size? I am speaking here of beasts.
Cicero had one remarkable ally on that occasion. On one of the days when the Senate was known to be discussing his recall, the 'Andromache' of Ennius was being played in the theatre. The popular actor Esop, whose name has come down to us in conjunction with that of Roscius, was playing the principal character.
The oldest and most important of the early historians, Quintus Fabius Pictor, the contemporary of Naevius and Ennius, actually wrote in Greek, though a Latin version of his work certainly existed, whether executed by himself or some other hand is doubtful, at an almost contemporary date. Extracts are quoted from it by the grammarians as specimens of the language of the period.
So thought old Ennius, as reported by Cicero, and that remained the genuine Roman feeling to the last. "Quanta perversitas!" as Tertullian exclaimed. "Artem magnificant, artificem notant." In this matter the Romans, although they aroused the horror of the Christians, were yet in reality laying the foundation of Christian morality.
Like Ennius, Lucretius disdains the mythological lore with which poetry was overloaded by Alexandrinism, and requires nothing from his reader but a knowledge of the legends generally current. In spite of the modern purism which rejected foreign words from poetry, Lucretius prefers to use, as Ennius had done, a significant Greek word in place of a feeble and obscure Latin one.
But why should the Romans grant to Plutus and Caecilius a privilege denied to Virgil and Varius? Why should I be envied, if I have it in my power to acquire a few words, when the language of Cato and Ennius has enriched our native tongue, and produced new names of things? It has been, and ever will be, allowable to coin a word marked with the stamp in present request.
This remarkable word must have been in use as early as the sixth century of Rome among the Celts in the valley of the Po; for Ennius is already acquainted with it, and it can only have reached the Italians at so early a period from that quarter. It is not merely Celtic, however, but also German, the root of our "Amt," as indeed the retainer-system itself is common to the Celts and the Germans.
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