Horace, in Cicero and Caesar. The graceful softening of language
and art among the imaginative Greeks, becomes in the Romans
austere power and majesty, with a tendency to express greatness
by size. These early indications of race characteristics never
died out, as we may see by the contrast between the Apollo
Belvidere of the Greeks, and the Moses of Michelangelo. The
oldest existing example of Latin or Roman literature is the
sacred chant of the Frates Arvales. These latter composed a
college of Priests whose prescribed duty was to offer prayers for
abundant harvests. This took place in the spring, in solemn
dances and processions, not unlike the Bacchic festivals of the
Greeks, although the Roman dances took place in the temple with
closed doors. The dance was called the tripudium from its having
three rhythmical beats. The inscription of this litany of the
Frates was discovered in Rome in 1778, and experts have agreed
that the monument belongs to the reign of Heliogabalus, 218 A.D.
It is said to contain the very words used by the priests in the
earliest times.

"Most of the old literary monuments in Rome," says a modern
writer, "were written in Saturnian verse, the oldest measure used
by the Latin poets. It was probably derived from the Etruscans,
and until Ennius introduced the heroic hexameter the strains of
the Italian bards flowed in this metre. The structure of the
Saturnian is very simple, and its rhythmical arrangement is found
in the poetry of every age and country. Macaulay adduces as an
example of this measure, the following line from the well-known
nursery song:

'The queen was in her parlor,