ROMAN LITERATURE The Romans were an intensely practical peo ple, endowed with less imagination and less creative power than the Greeks, and also lacked their fine feeling for the beautiful. Hence their literature does not have the same freshness and originality, though it is not less important, for through Cicero the prose style of Isocrates was transmitted to modern literature, and their laws live in many modern constitutions. The literary activity of the Romans may be divided into five periods: (1) Prehistoric ; (2) Archaic from Livius Andronicus to Cicero (240-70 a.c.) ; (3) The Golden or Classical (70 B.C. to 14 A.D.), em bracing the Ciceronian and Augustan Periods; (4) The Silver Age (14-117 A.D.) ; (5) The Period of Decline (117-500 A.D.).
I. The Prehistoric The begin nings of Roman Literature were poetic and we find here carmina or songs on historical sub jects, hymns to the dead, sacred songs, etc., com posed in the Saturnian metre, and some epi taphs. The beginnings of drama are seen in the farce plays, (Satura,' (Atellana.' Prose was confined to treatises, annals, laws, of which latter we may mention the 'Leges XII Tabularum,> which were committed to memory as the commandments. The only prose writer of this period was Appius Claudius Cmcus, whose speech against Pyrrhus was long extant.
II. The Archaic Historic Roman Literature begins with Livius Andronicus (284 204 a.c.), who besides making a dull and dry translation of the (Odyssey,' wrote comedies and tragedies based on the Greek. Cn. Nwvius (264-194 B.c.) also wrote plays and an epic poem on the First Punic War, still using the Saturn ian metre but showing more skill and originality than Livius Andronicus. The most important comedian of all is T. Maccius Plautus (254-184 B.c.), to whom about 130 plays are ascribed. Of these Varro selected about 31 as genuine and probably 19 others are genuine. Of the plays selected by Varro as genuine, 20 are still extant and considerable fragments of the 21st, the (Vidularia.' Plautus's plays are all based on the Greek. He shows great ability in working out the plots, handles his metres freely, but skil fully, and is a perfect master of the popular speech. His dialogue is bright and lively, full of rude wit and keen humor. His plays were
long exhibited on the stage and studied in the schools and have been widely imitated in mod ern times. P. Terentius (185-159 ac.) was brought as a slave to Rome, where he was liber ated. His intimacy with Scipio Africanus and Caiuslius gave rise to the belief that Scipio was the author of his plays. Six plays are extant, which are mostly imitated from Menan der. Terence has neither the luxuriant genius nor the creative ability of Plautus and lacks his pungent wit, but he is more reflective, more melodious, more artistic. His language is that of the best cultivated circles, and possesses ele gance and grace. He was greatly admired by later Romans, and like Plautus has been a model for modern dramatists. Here may also be mentioned Statius C.a-cilius, who imitated the new comedy of the Greeks, and Luscius Lanuvinus, the enemy and rival of Terence. The Fabula Togata or national comedy found its chief representative in L. Afranius (c. 150 B.c.), a man of considerable ability. Tragedy was cultivated especially by M. Pacuvius (220-132 ac.), of whose 13 plays we have only frag ments, and L. Accius (170-94 s.c.), who wrote about 40 tragedies. He was greatly admired by Cicero, Horace and others. Besides Livius Andronicus and Cn. Naevius, already mentioned, the epic was treated by Q. Ennius (239-169 B.c.), who far outshone the others and may be called with Horace ((Father Ennius,p as the real founder of Latin poetry. His great work, be sides comedies, tragedies, saturm, was the (An nales' in 18 books, of which only fragments are preserved. His verse is often rude and forced, but he was a man of talent, possessing a vivid imagination and great skill in handling the language. He introduced the hexameter verse to take the place of the Saturnian, and his work marks an epoch in the language changes pro duced. He was greatly admired by Cicero, who was fond of quoting him. Ennius also wrote saturm, but he was surpassed in this by C. Lucilius (150-103 ac.), whose verse was rude and unfinished, but full of keen wit and search ing criticism of public men and public affairs. Lucilius deserves special mention for giving the satura the nature of an invective poem. About 900 fragments are preserved.