Part 12 (2/2)

Lucilius, pp 222-252 _The Roiac Poets_: The Satires of Horace, pp 51-84

TYRRELL, _Latin Poetry_: Horace and Lucilius, pp 162-181; Latin Satire, pp 216-259

NETTLEshi+P, _The Original Form of the Roman Satura Lectures and Essays_: Horace, Life and Poems, pp 143-167

CONINGTON, _The Satires of Persius_, with translations and cos of Persius, pp xiii-xxxii

GIFFORD, _Satires of Juvenal and Persius_, translated into English verse: The Life of Juvenal, Vol I, pp xxxi-xlviii; The Roman Satirists, pp xlix-lxxxii; Life and Satires of Persius, Vol II, pp

v-xlvii

PEARSON AND STRONG, _Thirteen Satires of Juvenal_ (the best text edition with commentary): Life of Juvenal, pp 9-46

PART III

EPIC POETRY

Who Show'dall, like Saturn's ring?

1 CN NaeVIUS--THE FIRST NATIONAL ROMAN EPIC

We have already seen how the national pride of Roation of Italy and the first successful step in foreign conquest as the result of the First Punic War, and how this quickened national pride gave a new impulse to literature We have seen how from this period under the powerful sti in its literary form And it was in this same soil of awakened national consciousness, and in this saht and expression that the Ros

The rude translation of Homer's _Odyssey_ made by Livius Andronicus is not to be considered in this connection, for this was produced with no national feeling, but only that he ht have a text-book froue The honor of producing the first heroic poes to Cn

Naevius, to whoh praise of ”the first Roman who deserves to be called a poet” He was a native of the district of Campania, of plebeian family, of most sturdy and independent character

The period of his life falls approximately between the years 269 and 199 B C We know that he was a soldier in his earlier life, serving in the First Punic War in Sicily, that he was ie upon the noble family of the Metelli, and afterward banished to Africa, where he ended his days

The tragedies and comedies of Naevius date from his life in Rome, but the occupation, and we e in exile was the composition of his _Bellum Punicum_, a heroic poem upon the First Punic War This poeh old Saturnian verse which came down from hoary antiquity as a native Role not unlike so was in his counting-house counting out his money,

is a fair sample Roman in form, the epic of Naevius was also intensely national in spirit and content It ritten in seven books, of which the first two forround or prelude, and the rereat duel between Roments of this poem, especially in the introductory books, we are surprised to find ourselves upon fa with one of the great sources of Vergil's inspiration For here in these broken scraps as in a shatteredfrom Troy with their wives and treasure, and of the storm that drove the Trojans out of their course and wrecked them upon the shores of Africa; we hear snatches of Venus' appeal to Jupiter in their behalf, of Jove's reply prohty destiny, and of Dido's request to aeneas for his tale of the Trojan War

The whole seely simple and direct style, without much attempt at poetic embellishment The poet prided hiainst the strong hellenizing tendency that was setting in His epitaph (Ro their own epitaphs) may seem a bit over-laudatory of self fro with the outspoken style of his ti in the claim that he makes to be the mouthpiece and perhaps the last disciple of the native Italian muses (Camenae) Here is his epitaph:

If it were meet that th' immortals' tears should fall on mortal clay, Then would our native Muses weep for this our Naevius; For truly, since to Death's great garner he was gathered in, Our Roue

2 QUINTUS ENNIUS

The hellenizing tendency of which Naevius co his life at Rome But it was especially the influence of his literary successor, an influence stilltoward Greek forms and motives, which the unfortunate Naevius ave added bitterness to the lament which the sturdy old Roman has left us in his epitaph

This literary successor was the poet Quintus Ennius, who ates of Rome, since he arrived at Rome at about the time when Naevius went into banish been born and reared down in the extreme heel of Italy, at Rudiae in Calabria, a section which had for ood local fah Oscan speech of his native village, with the polished Greek of neighboring Tarentuue, which had becoe of his district after Rome had pushed her conquests to the limits of Italy He ont to say of himself that he had three hearts--Oscan, Latin, and Greek; and certainly by the circuood representative of the threefold national influences which were rapidly converging