XXlV THE FIRST PUNIC WAR BY NAEVIUS.
Campanian, and it must be supposed that there then existed
at Capua, a much more lively interest for literature than at
Rome, where it was gradually developed out of popular poetry.
Naevius wrote many plays. His poem on the Punic war was
divided, Suetonius says6, into seven books and was formerly
written continente scriptura. The verses, though not distin-
guished originally (an experienced reader must have been
able to make them out for himself), were afterwards probably
marked by C. Octavius Lampadio, who also divided the work
into books. The fragments we possess of this work, show that
it was by no means devoid of high poetical merit. Servius,
who had read Ennius, but seems never to have seen the work
ofNaevius (I believe that he merely knew it from old com-
mentators), says that Virgil had borrowed the plan of the
first books of the Æneid from Naevius.7 Naevius treated of the
destruction of Troy, of Dido and the landing of Æneas in
Latium; and we may justly conclude that Naevius, like Virgil,
represented the hostility between the Romans and Carthaginians,
as having arisen from the reception which Æneas met with in
Carthage, and from his unfaithfulness to Dido.8 As Naevius
did not place Æneas at so early a period as was done in the
times of Virgil, the anachronism with which the latter has been
charged, is groundless—blind enthusiasm will never be just
towards Virgil, but only sound criticism, — and with old
Naevius he made the arrival of Æneas coincide with the foun-
dation of Carthage. There is yet an immense deal to be done
by a commentator on the Æneid. In order to form a proper
estimate of Virgil, we must observe that, without contradict-
ing the historical statements, he very frequently withdraws
into the old poetical traditions9: only learned scholars and
good historians are fit to be his commentators. Thus Romulus
is with him the actual grandson of Æneas ; he does not make
him descend from the Alban kings, but conceives him to be
the son of Ilia, as the older Roman poets did.10 I am also
convinced that the shield of Æneas in Virgil had its model in
Naevius, in whose poem Æneas or some other hero had a shield
representing the wars of the giants.11 I believe that Naevius
gave a full account of the semina odii et belli, and that he went
β De Illustr. Gram. 2.
“ Vol.i. p. 191, foil.
‘° Servius, ad Æn. i.273.
7 Servius, ad Aen. i. 98, ii.797, Hi. 10.
9 Vol.i. note 980.
" Vol,i. p. 192.
Peksecution of naevius.
XXV
through the early history of Rome : that he spoke of Romulus
we know.12
., It is well known, that Naevius drew misery upon himself
and it is said, was thrown into prison, on account of some
verses, by which he had offended the proud Metelli13- but no
one, I believe, has asked himself, how it was possible to throw
a Roman citizen into a dungeon for having written some libel-
lous verses. In addition to this, it is said that he wrote two
plays while in prison.14 But if one has been at Rome and seen
those awful dungeons in the prison, which were considered by
the ancients themselves as the entries of death for those who
were to be executed, and into which no ray of light could
penetrate, such an account must be incomprehensible. Yet I
believe that the difficulty can be removed. We know that
Naevius was a Campanian : we know that the greater number
of the Campanians lost the Roman franchise, or at least all the
advantages of it, on account of their insurrection in the second
Punic war. We may therefore suppose, that Naevius being
without friends and helpless15 was given up for his offence to
Metellus, as a noxae deditus, not to be kept in the state prison
but in the house of Metellus himself, since there were prisons
for debtors attached to many houses of the nobles. Insolvent
debtors fell into the same condition of noxae dediti, and were
kept nervo el compedibus.16 The account of his death at Utica in
the year 547 according to Cato, (or 549, according to Varro),
as stated in the Chronicle of St. Hieronymus17, is false, for Utica
was then in the hands of the Carthaginians, and remained
faithful to them to the last ; and he would have been ill received,
even if he had come as a transfuga. If he was expelled by the
nobles, he certainly did not go to Africa, and we must reject
this account the more, since Cicero says that Varro assigned
a later date for his death.18 The year of his death there-
fore was uncertain even at that time. There are incredible
12 Servius, adÆn ɪ. 273.
13 Gclliiis, iii.3; the Pscudo-Asconiuson Cic. in Verr, ɪ. 10,p. 140, cd. Orelli,
mentions the verse which gave offence to the Metclli: “Fato Metelli Bomae fiunt
consules,” and adds, “ cui tunc Metcllus consul iratus Versu responderat senario
Upereatalccto, qui et Saturnins dicitur:
Dabunt malum Metelli Naevio poëtae.”
14 Gellius, iii.3. 15 Compare vol.ιi. note 105. 16 Vol.i. p.576, Gcllius, xx. 1.
17 P. 36. Compare Cicero, Brut. 15: “His Consulibus (Cethego et Tuditano),
ut in veterιbus Commentariis scriptum est, Naevius moιtuus est.” ιs Brut. 15,