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"Of the ancient tragedians Accius and Pacuvius are the most renowned for the gravity of their sentiments, the weight of their words, and the dignity of their characters. But brilliancy of touch and the last polish in completing their work seems to have been wanting, not so much to themselves as to their times. Next comes the Thyestes of Varius, which may be compared with any of the Greek plays.
Its season of comparative brilliance was the period shortly before and after the first Punic war; yet Naevius, Ennius, Pacuvius and generally the whole body of the national Roman authors down to Varro and Lucretius in all branches of poetical production, not excepting even the didactic poem, attached themselves, not to their Greek contemporaries or very recent predecessors, but without exception to Homer, Euripides, Menander and the other masters of the living and national Greek literature.
In like manner literary activity gradually rises in public opinion from a trade to an art. At the beginning of this period the preparation of theatrical pieces at any rate, if not the publication of recitative poems, was still regarded as not becoming for the Roman of quality; Pacuvius and Terence lived by their pieces; the writing of dramas was entirely a trade, and not one of golden produce.
Marcus Pacuvius of Brundisium, who painted in the temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium the same who, when more advanced in life, made himself a name as an editor of Greek tragedies; and Marcus Plautius Lyco, a native of Asia Minor, whose beautiful paintings in the temple of Juno at Ardea procured for him the freedom of that city.
Early Literature of the Romans; the Fescennine Songs; the Fabulae Atellanae. 2. Early Latin Poets; Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius. 3. Roman Comedy. 4. Comic Poets; Plautus, Terence, and Statius. 5. Roman Tragedy. 6. Tragic Poets; Pacuvius and Attius. 7. Satire; Lucilius. 8. History and Oratory; Fabius Pictor; Cencius Alimentus; Cato; Varro; M. Antonius; Crassus; Hortensius. 9.
As often as a debate arises, whether this poet or the other be preferable; Pacuvius bears away the character of a learned, Accius, of a lofty writer; Afranius' gown is said to have fitted Menander; Plautus, to hurry after the pattern of the Sicilian Epicharmus; Caecilius, to excel in gravity, Terence in contrivance.
Reflecting on what has been said, we see how quickly men's eyes may be opened, if knowing that they deceive themselves in generalities, we can find a way to make them pass to particulars; as Pacuvius did in the case of the Capuans, and the senate in the case of Rome.
Both of them imitated the old Greek comedy; and so did Ennius and Pacuvius before them.
Pacuvius Calavius had rendered the senate subservient to himself and the commons, at once a noble and popular man, but who had acquired his influence by dishonourable intrigues.
Lucius Accius of Pisaurum produced one of his early plays in the year 140 B.C., on the same occasion when one of his latest was produced by Pacuvius, then an old man of eighty. Accius reached a like age himself; Cicero as a young man knew him well, and used to relate incidents of the aged poet's earlier life which he had heard from his own lips.
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