Studies in the Poetry of Italy, Part I. Roman

AN

War, and how this quickened national pride gave a new impulse to literature. We have seen how from this period under the powerful stimulus of Greek influence the drama sprang into being

irst heroic poem in Roman literature belongs to Cn. N?vius, to whom Mommsen accords the high 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 app

composition of his Bellum Punicum, a heroic poem upon the First Punic War. This poem is a truly national epic written in the rough old Saturnian verse

counting-house cou

t. It was written in seven books, of which the first two form a kind of mythological background or p

tion. For here in these broken scraps as in a shattered mirror we catch glimpses of ?neas and Anchises departing from Troy with their wives and treasure, and of the storm that drove the Trojans out of their course and wr

trong Hellenizing tendency that was setting in. His epitaph (Roman writers had a weakness for composing their own epitaphs) may seem a bit over-laudatory of self from our modest modern standpoint, but it is qui

' immortals' tears shou

tive Muses weep f

Death's great garner

clean forgot to speak