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Updated: June 11, 2025
Other subjects, included in the Saturae of Ennius, were the Hedyphagetica, a humorous didactic poem on the mysteries of gastronomy, which may have suggested similar effusions by Lucilius and Horace; the Epicharmus and Euhemerus, both in trochaics, the latter a free translation of the iera anagraphae, or explanation of the gods as deified mortals; and the Epigrams, among which two on the great Scipio are still preserved, the first breathing the spirit of the Republic, the second asserting with some arrogance the exploits of the hero, and his claims to a place among the denizens of heaven.
We gather from Livy that they were acted on the stage as early as 359 B.C. Before this the boards had been occupied by Etruscan dancers, and possibly, though not certainly, by improvisers of Fescennine buffooneries; but soon after this date Saturae were performed by one or more actors to the accompaniment of the flute.
Varro followed him; we find him in the Academicae Quaestiones of Cicero, saying that he adopted this method in the hope of enticing the unlearned to read something that might profit them. In these saturae topics were handled with the greatest freedom. They were not satires in the modern sense.
There was one class of semi-poetical composition which Varro made peculiarly his own, the Satura Menippea, a medley of prose and verse, treating of all kinds of subjects just as they came to hand in the plebeian style, often with much grossness, but with sparkling point. Of these Saturae he wrote no less than 150 books, of which fragments have been preserved amounting to near 600 lines.
But of course I made no answer, and presently I supposed that he must have crept off to his clothes, for some way up the stream I heard the Second Master's voice warning the bathers to dress and return, and with his usual formula, Ite domum saturae, venit Hesperus, ite capelloe!
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