THE LATINS

The Latins, Imitators of the Greeks. Epic Poets, Dramatic Poets. Golden
Age: Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Silver Age: Prose Writers, Historians and
Philosophers:--Titus-Livy, Tacitus, Seneca. Decadence Still Brilliant.


LATIN LITERATURE.--Latin literature is little more than a branch of Greek
literature. It commenced much later, finished earlier, and has always
poured into the others at least a portion of its living force. Roman
literature really begins only at the moment when the Romans came into
contact with the Greeks, read their works, and were tempted to imitate
them; that is to say, it commences in the third century before Christ.
The first manifestation of this literature was epic. Naevius and Livius
Andronicus made epopees. They are destitute of talent. Ennius made one:
it possessed merit; what the Latin critics have quoted of his
_Annals_ is marked, first by an energetic patriotic sentiment which
affords pleasure; then it possesses energy and sometimes even a certain
brilliance. In addition, Ennius wrote several didactic and satiric poems.
Among the Romans, Ennius was the great ancestor and father of Latin
literature.

LUCILIUS.--Lucilius was a satirist. Judging by the fragments of his work
which have come down to us, he was a very acute and penetrating political
satirist. Horace, despite his sovereign disdain for all that preceded his
own century, did not fail to value him and agreed that there was
something to be drawn and appreciated from this "muddy torrent."

COMEDY: PLAUTUS; TERENCE.--Comedy and tragedy existed at this period. It
may be apposite here to point out that it was later and in the finest