imself a poet and wholly destitute
of the comic vein. We can understand the pride with which the
Hellenizing poet looked down on those rude strains --

-quos olim Faunei vatesque canebant,-

and the enthusiasm with which he celebrates his own artistic poetry:

-Enni foeta, salve,
Versus propinas flammeos medullitus.-

The clever man had an instinctive assurance that he had spread his
sails to a prosperous breeze; Greek tragedy became, and thenceforth
remained, a possession of the Latin nation.

National Dramas

Through less frequented paths, and with a less favourable wind, a
bolder mariner pursued a higher aim. Naevius not only like Ennius
--although with far less success--adapted Greek tragedies for the
Roman stage, but also attempted to create, independently of the
Greeks, a grave national drama (-fabula praetextata-). No outward
obstacles here stood in the way; he brought forward subjects both
from Roman legend and from the contemporary history of the country on
the stage of his native land. Such were his Nursing of Romulus and
Remus or the Wolf, in which Amulius king of Alba appeared, and his
-Clastidium-, which celebrated the victory of Marcellus over the
Celts in 532.(49) After his example, Ennius in his -Ambracia-
described from personal observation the siege of that city by his
patron Nobilior in 565.(50) But the number of these national dramas
remained small, and that species of composition soon disappeared from
the stage; the scanty legend and the colourless history of Rome were
unable permanently to compete with the rich cycle of Hellenic legends.
Respecting the poetic value of the pieces we have no longer the means
of judging; but, if we may take account of the general poetical
intention, there were in Roman literature few such strokes of genius
as the creation of a Roman national drama. Only the Greek tragedians
of that earliest period which still felt itself nearer to the gods
--only poets like Phrynichus and Aeschylus--had the courage to bring
the great deeds which they had witnessed, and in which they had borne
a part, on the stage by the side of those of legendary times; and
here, if anywhere, we are enabled vividly to realize what the Punic
wars were and how powerful was their effect, when we find a poet,
who like Aeschylus had himself fought in the battles which he sang,
introducing the kings and consuls of Rome upon that stage on which
men had hitherto been accustomed to see none but