Note 31 — Chapter V

or his more fortunate son who conquered the Macedonians at Pydna, yet it would seem much more probable that the poet should celebrate a great triumph of his own time, achieved by one in whom, from his connexion with Scipio, the nephew of Ennius would feel a special interest, than that he should recall a great calamity of a past generation, neither near enough to excite immediate attention, nor sufficiently remote to justify an imaginative treatment. The Fabulae Praetextatae, of which this was one, were, as Niebuhr31 has pointed out, historical plays rather than tragedies. Such a drama would not naturally or necessarily require a tragic catastrophe, but would represent the traditions of the earlier annals, or the great events of current history, in accordance with the dictates of national feeling. No important fragment of this drama has been preserved, but the fact of its having been written by Pacuvius is interesting, as affording a parallel to the celebration of the victory of Marcellus in the Clastidium of Naevius, and of the success of M. Fulvius Nobilior in the Ambracia of Ennius.