Gnaeus Naevius

Of his writings there survive only fragments of several poems preserved in the citations of late ancient grammarians (Charisius, Aelius Donatus, Sextus Pompeius Festus, Aulus Gellius, Isidorus Hispalensis, Macrobius, Nonius Marcellus, Priscian, Marcus Terentius Varro).

[3] After writing two plays during his imprisonment, in which he is said to have apologized for his former rudeness,[4] he was liberated through the interference of the tribunes of the commons; but he had shortly afterwards to retire from Rome (in or about 204) to Utica.

Probably his latest composition was his own epitaph, written in saturnian verse: Immortales mortales si foret fas flere, flerent diuae Camenae Naeuium poetam.

Among the titles of his tragedies are Aegisthus, Lycurgus, Andromache or Hector Proficiscens, Equus Troianus, the last named being performed at the opening of Pompey's theatre (55 BC).

Besides his attack on the Metelli and other members of the aristocracy, the great Scipio is the object of a censorious criticism on account of a youthful escapade attributed to him.

An important influence in Roman literature and belief, which had its origin in Sicily, first appeared in this poem: the recognition of the mythical connection of Aeneas and his Trojans with the foundation of Rome.

The few remaining fragments produce the impression of vivid and rapid narrative, to which the flow of the native Saturnian verse, in contradistinction to the weighty and complex structure of the hexameter, was naturally adapted.

As a dramatist he worked more in the spirit of Plautus than of Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, or Terence; but the great Umbrian humorist is separated from his older contemporary, not only by his breadth of comic power, but by his general attitude of moral and political indifference.

Although our means of forming a fair estimate of Naevius are scanty, all that we do know of him leads to the conclusion that he was far from being the least among the makers of Roman literature, and that with the loss of his writings there was lost a vein of national feeling and genius which rarely reappears.