Theodor Mommsen - The History of Rome. Book III

In the -Scipio-, which was probably incorporated in the collection of miscellaneous poems, the graphic lines occurred:

This last passage affords us a glimpse of the way in which the poet worked up his original poems. It is simply an expansion of the words which occur in the tragedy Hectoris Lustra (the original of which was probably by Sophocles) as spoken by a spectator of the combat between Hephaestus and the Scamander:

and the incident is derived from the Iliad (xxi. 381).

49.Thus in the Phoenix we find the line:

and this is not the most absurd specimen of such recurring assonances. He also indulged in acrostic verses (Cic. de Div. ii. 54, iii).

50.III. III. The Celts Conquered by Rome.

51.III. IX. Conflicts and Peace with the Aetolians.

52.Besides Cato, we find the names of two "consulars and poets" belonging to this period (Sueton. Vita Terent. 4) - Quintus Labeo, consul in 571, and Marcus Popillius, consul in 581. But it remains uncertain whether they published their poems. Even in the case of Cato this may be doubted.

53.II. IX. Roman Historical Composition.

54.III. XII. Irreligious Spirit.

55.III. XII. Irreligious Spirit.

56.The following fragments will give some idea of its tone. Of Dido he says:

Again of Amulius:

Part of a speech where the indirect construction is remarkable:

With reference to the landing at Malta in 498:

Lastly, as to the peace which terminated the war concerning Sicily:

57.That this oldest prose work on the history of Rome was composed in Greek, is established beyond a doubt by Dionys. i. 6, and Cicero, de Div. i. 21, 43. The Latin Annals quoted under the same name by Quintilian and later grammarians remain involved in mystery, and the difficulty is increased by the circumstance, that there is also quoted under the same name a very detailed exposition of the pontifical law in the Latin language. But the latter treatise will not be attributed by any one, who has traced the development of Roman literature in its connection, to an author of the age of the Hannibalic war; and even Latin annals from that age appear problematical, although it must remain a moot question whether there has been a confusion of the earlier with a later annalist, Quintus Fabius Maximus Servilianus (consul in 612), or whether there existed an old Latin edition of the Greek Annals of Fabius as well as of those of Acilius and Albinus, or whether there were two annalists of the name of Fabius Pictor. The historical work likewise written in Greek, ascribed to Lucius Cincius Alimentus a contemporary of Fabius, seems spurious and a compilation of the Augustan age.

58.Cato's whole literary activity belonged to the period of his old age (Cicero, Cat. ii, 38; Nepos, Cato, 3); the composition even of the earlier books of the "Origines" falls not before, and yet probably not long subsequent to, 586 (Plin. H. N. iii. 14, 114).

59.It is evidently by way of contrast with Fabius that Polybius (xl. 6, 4) calls attention to the fact, that Albinus, madly fond of everything Greek, had given himself the trouble of writing history systematically [ pragmatiken iotorian ].

60.II. IX. Roman Early History of Rome.

61.III. XIV. Knowledge of Languages.

62.For instance the history of the siege of Gabii is compiled from the anecdotes in Herodotus as to Zopyrus and the tyrant Thrasybulus, and one version of the story of the exposure of Romulus is framed on the model of the history of the youth of Cyrus as Herodotus relates it.

63.III. VII. Measures Adopted to Check the Immigration of the Transalpine Gauls.

64.II. IX. Roman Early History of Rome.

65.II. IX. Registers of Magistrates.

66.Plautus (Mostell. 126) says of parents, that they teach their children litteras , iura , leges ; and Plutarch (Cato Mai. 20) testifies to the same effect.

67.II. IX. Philology.

68.Thus in his Epicharmian poems Jupiter is so called, quod iuvat ; and Ceres, quod gerit fruges .

69. Rem tene, verba sequentur .

70.II. IX. Languge.

71.See the lines already quoted at III. II. The War on the Coasts of Sicily and Sardinia. The formation of the name poeta from the vulgar Greek poetes - instead of poietes - as epoesen was in use among the Attic potters - is characteristic. We may add that poeta technically denotes only the author of epic or recitative poems, not the composer for the stage, who at this time was styled scriba (III. XIV. Audience; Festus, s. v., p. 333 M.).

72.Even subordinate figures from the legends of Troy and of Herakles niake their appearance, e. g. Talthybius (Stich. 305), Autolycus (Bacch. 275), Parthaon (Men. 745). Moreover the most general outlines must have been known in the case of the Theban and the Argonautic legends, and of the stories of Bellerophon (Bacch. 810), Pentheus (Merc. 467), Procne and Philomela (Rud. 604). Sappho and Phaon (Mil. 1247).

73."As to these Greeks", he says to his son Marcus, "I shall tell at the proper place, what I came to learn regarding them at Athens; and shall show that it is useful to look into their writings, but not to study them thoroughly. They are an utterly corrupt and ungovernable race - believe me, this is true as an oracle; if that people bring hither its culture, it will ruin everything, and most especially if it send hither its physicians. They have conspired to despatch all barbarians by their physicking, but they get themselves paid for it, that people may trust them and that they may the more easily bring us to ruin. They call us also barbarians, and indeed revile us by the still more vulgar name of Opicans. I interdict thee, therefore, from all dealings with the practitioners of the healing art". Cato in his zeal was not aware that the name of Opicans, which had in Latin an obnoxious meaning, was in Greek quite unobjectionable, and that the Greeks had in the most innocent way come to designate the Italians by that term (I. X. Time of the Greek Immigration).

74.II. IX. Censure of Art.

75.III. II. War between the Romans and Carthaginians and Syracusans.

76.Plautius belongs to this or to the beginning of the following period, for the inscription on his pictures (Plin. H. N. xxxv. 10, 115), being hexametrical, cannot well be older than Ennius, and the bestowal of the citizenship of Ardea must have taken place before the Social War, through which Ardea lost its independence.