Note 1 — Chapter X

An interval of nearly half a century elapsed between the death of Lucilius and the appearance of the poem of Lucretius. During this period no poetical works of any value were produced at Rome. The only successors of the older tragedians, C. Julius Caesar (Consul b.c. 88) and C. Titius, never obtained a success on the stage approaching to that still accorded to the older dramas. No rival appeared to dispute the popularity enjoyed by Plautus, Caecilius, and Terence, as authors of the Comoedia Palliata; but the literary activity of Afranius and of T. Quintius Atta, the most eminent among the authors of the Fabulae togatae, extended into the early years of the first century b.c. It was during this period also that the Fabula Atellana was raised by L. Pomponius of Bononia and Novius into the rank of regular literature. The tendency to depart more and more from the Greek type of comedy, and to revert to the scenic entertainment native to Italy, is seen in the attempt of Laberius, in the last years of the Republic, to raise the Mimus into the sphere of recognised literary art. The Annalistic epic of Hostius on the Istrian war, and the Annales of Furius, of Antium, a friend of the elder Catulus, perpetuated the traditional influence of Ennius, during the interval between Lucilius and Lucretius. The first attempts to introduce the erotic poetry of Alexandria, in the form of epigrams and short lyrical poems, also belong to this period. The writers of this new kind of poetry,—Valerius Aedituus, Q. Lutatius Catulus (the Colleague of Marius in his consulship of the year 102 b.c.), and Laevius, the author of Erotopaegnia, have significance only as indicating the direction which Roman poetry followed in the succeeding generation. Cicero in his youth cultivated verse-making, both as a translator of the poem of Aratus, and as the author of an original poem on his townsman Marius. His hexameters show considerable advance in rhythmical smoothness and exactness beyond the previous condition of that metre, as exemplified in the fragments of Ennius and Lucilius: and his translation of Aratus marks a stage in the history of Latin poetry as affording a native model, which Lucretius did not altogether disregard in the structure of his verse and diction1. But Cicero is not to be ranked among the poets of Rome. He merely practised verse-making as part of his general literary training. He retained the accomplishment till his latest years, and shows his facility by translating passages from the Greek tragedians in his philosophical works. That he had no true poetical faculty is shown by the apparent indifference with which he regarded the works of the two great poets of his time. This indifference is the more marked from his generous recognition of the oratorical promise and accomplishment of the men of a younger generation. The tragedies of Q. Cicero were mere literary exercises and made no impression on his generation. Though several of the multifarious works of Varro were written in verse, yet the whole cast of his mind was thoroughly prosaic. His tastes and abilities were those of an antiquarian scholar, not of a man of poetic genius and accomplishment.