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Updated: June 1, 2025
But we judge from partial evidence, and we judge perhaps partially. Ennius, Varro, Pacuvius, and Accius, all great poets, have been lost. Lucretius is in the highest, and Virgil in a very high sense, a creator. The chosen delicacy of expressions of the latter are as a mist of light which conceal from us the intense and exceeding truth of his conceptions of nature. Livy is instinct with poetry.
And then the credit of having had such a commission given me by you, will make amends for the blame which the deficiency of my judgment will bring upon me. I am delighted with Ennius, says one person, because he never departs from the ordinary use of words. I love Pacuvius, says another, all his verses are so ornamented and elaborate while Ennius is often so careless. Another is all for Attius.
His style, like that of Andronicus, was rough and unpolished, in conformity to the language of those times; but for grandeur of sentiment and energy of expression, he was admired by the greatest poets in the subsequent ages. Other writers of distinguished reputation in the dramatic department were Naevius, Pacuvius, Plautus, Afranius, Caecilius, Terence, Accius, etc.
Or if he does not speak in defence of that particular point which is urged in accusation; as if any one when accused of corruption were to defend himself by the statement that he was brave; as Amphion does in Euripides, and so too in Pacuvius, who, when his musical knowledge is found fault with, praises his knowledge of philosophy.
The metre selected was the elegiac, on account of its natural pause at the close of the second line. The nearest approach to such simple epigrams are the epitaphs of Naevius, Ennius, and especially Pacuvius, already quoted. This natural grace, however, was, even in Greek poetry, superseded by a more artificial style.
Gaius Asinius Pollio, the first orator and critic of the period, and a magnificent patron of art and science, also composed tragedies more on the antique model of Accius and Pacuvius, in a dry and severe manner.
Those who were familiar with the Iliad, with Xenophon, and with Menander, could not be greatly impressed by the Roman Homer, and still less by the bad translations of the tragedies of Euripides which Ennius had furnished and Pacuvius continued to furnish.
Accius, the nephew of Pacuvius, had died as a very old man when Cicero was a boy; and in the national comedy no one had been found to follow Afranius. The times were disturbed, the population was restless, and continually incorporating heterogeneous elements: much amusement could be found in the life of the Forum, and in rioting and disorder; gladiatorial shows were organised on a large scale.
Thus, for instance, "I am for Ennius," says one; "because he confines himself to the style of conversation:" "and I," says another, "give the preference to Pacuvius, because his verses are embellished and well- wrought; whereas Ennius is rather too "negligent."
In the selection of his models, his choice fell upon the older Greek writers, such as Empedocles, Aeschylus, Thucydides, men renowned for deep thought rather than elegant expression; and among the Romans, upon Ennius and Pacuvius, the giants of a ruder past. Among contemporaries, Cicero alone seems to have awakened his admiration.
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