Gnaeus Naevius (c. 264 - 194 BC), was a Latin epic poet and dramatist. Naevius was the nomen for the plebeian gens Naevia of ancient Rome. ... Centuries: 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC Decades: 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 280s BC 270s BC - 260s BC - 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC Years: 269 BC 268 BC 267 BC 266 BC 265 BC - 264 BC - 263 BC 262 BC... Centuries: 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC - 1st century BC Decades: 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC 200s BC - 190s BC - 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC 140s BC Years: 199 BC 198 BC 197 BC 196 BC 195 BC - 194 BC - 193 BC 192 BC... Roman Empire between AD 60 and 400 with major cities. ... Poets are authors of poems, or of other forms of poetry such as dramatic verse. ... A dramatist is an author of dramatic compositions, usually plays. ...

There is great uncertainty in regard to his life. From the expression of Gellius (1. 24. I) characterizing his epitaph as written in a vein of Campanian arrogance it has been inferred that he was born in one of the Latin communities settled in Campania. But the phrase Campanian arrogance seems to have been used proverbially for gasconade; and, as there was a plebeian gens Naevia in Rome, it is quite as probable that he was by birth a Roman citizen. He served either in the Roman army or among the socii in the first Punic War, and thus must have reached manhood before 241. Aulus Gellius (c. ... Campania is a region of Southern Italy, bordering on Lazio to the north-west, Molise to the north, Puglia to the north-east, Basilicata to the east, and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. ... In Ancient Rome, the plebs was the general body of Roman citizens, distinct from the privileged class of the patricians. ... An exceptional if not the best Sega Genesis emulator for Windows 98/2000/ME/XP. Genesis ROMs use the SMD file extention. ... Location within Italy The Roman Colosseum Rome (Italian and Latin: Roma) is the capital city of Italy and of its Latium region. ... History -- Military History -- War The First Punic War was fought between Carthage and the Roman Republic from 264 BC to 241 BC. It was the first of three major wars between the two powers for supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea. ... Centuries: 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC Decades: 290s BC 280s BC 270s BC 260s BC 250s BC - 240s BC - 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC 200s BC 190s BC 246 BC 245 BC 244 BC 243 BC 242 BC - 241 BC - 240 BC 239 BC 238...

His career as a dramatic author began with the exhibition of a drama in or about the year 235, and continued for thirty years. Towards the close he incurred the hostility of some of the nobility, especially, it is said, of the Metelli, by the attacks which he made upon them on the stage, and at their instance he was imprisoned (Plautus, Mu. Glor. 211). After writing two plays during his imprisonment, in which he is said to have apologized for his former rudeness (Gellius iii. 3. 15), 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. It may have been during his exile, when withdrawn from his active career as a dramatist, that he composed or completed his poem on the first Punic war. Probably his latest composition was the epitaph already referred to, written like the epic in saturnalian verse: Centuries: 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC Decades: 280s BC 270s BC 260s BC 250s BC 240s BC - 230s BC - 220s BC 210s BC 200s BC 190s BC 180s BC Years: 240 BC 239 BC 238 BC 237 BC 236 BC - 235 BC - 234 BC 233 BC... The Caecilii Metellii was one of the most important and wealthiest families in the Roman Republic. ... Titus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. ... Utica was a Phoenician colony, on the African coast, near Carthage. ...

Immortales mortales si foret fas flere,
flerent diuae Camenae Naeuium poetam.
itaque, postquam est Orchi traditus thesauro,
obliti sunt Romani loquier lingua Latina.

If these lines were dictated by a jealousy of the growing ascendancy of Ennius, the life of Naevius must have been prolonged considerably beyond 204, the year in which Ennius began his career as an author in Rome. As distinguished from Livius Andronicus, Naevius was a native Italian, not a Greek; he was also an original writer, not a mere adapter or translator. If it was due to Livius that the forms of Latin literature were, from the first, moulded on those of Greek literature, it was due to Naevius that much of its spirit and substance was of native growth. Quintus Ennius (239 - 169 BC) was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. ... Centuries: 4th century BC - 3rd century BC - 2nd century BC Decades: 250s BC 240s BC 230s BC 220s BC 210s BC - 200s BC - 190s BC 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC Years: 209 BC 208 BC 207 BC 206 BC 205 BC - 204 BC - 203 BC 202 BC... Lucius Livius Andronicus (284-204 BC), was a Greek who became a Roman Dramatist and epic Poet, who gave Romans their first chance to read Greek classics in their own language. ...

Like Livius, Naevius professed to adapt Greek tragedies and comedies to the Roman stage. Among the titles of his tragedies are Aegisthus, Lycurgus, Andromache or Hector Proficiscens, Equus Trojanus, the last named being performed at the opening of Pompey's theatre (55). The national cast of his genius and temper was shown by his deviating from his Greek originals, and producing at least two specimens of the fabula praetexta (national drama) one founded on the childhood of Romulus and Remus (Lupus or Alimonium Romuli et Remi), the other called Clastidium, which celebrated the victory of Marcus Claudius Marcellus over the Celts (222). This article refers to the Roman General. ... Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome in Roman mythology, were the twin sons of the priestess Rhea Silvia, fathered by the god of war Mars. ... Marcus Claudius Marcellus (c. ... This article is about the European people. ...

But it was as a writer of comedy that he was most famous, most productive and most original. While he is never ranked as a writer of tragedy with Ennius, Pacuvius or Accius, he is placed in the canon of the grammarian Volcacius Sedigitus third (immediately after Caecilius and Plautus) in the rank of Roman comic authors. He is there characterized as ardent and impetuous in character and style. He is also appealed to, with Plautus and Ennius, as a master of his art in one of the prologues of Terence. His comedy, like that of Plautus, seems to have been rather a free adaptation of his originals than a rude copy of them, as those of Livius probably were, or an artistic copy like those of Terence. The titles of most of them, like those of Plautus, and unlike those of Caecilius and Terence, are Latin, not Greek. He drew from the writers of the old political comedy of Athens, as well as from the new comedy of manners, and he attempted to make the stage at Rome, as it had been at Athens, an arer, a of political and personal warfare. A strong spirit of partisanship is recognized in more than one of the fragments; and this spirit is thoroughly popular and adverse to the senatorial ascendancy which became more and more confirmed with the progress of the second Punic war. Besides his attack on the Metelli and other nembers of the aristocracy, the great Scipio is the object of a censorious criticism on account of a youthful escapade attributed to him. Among the few lines still remaining from his lost comedies, we seem to recognize the idiomatic force and rapidity of movement characteristic of the style of Plautus. There is also found that love of alliteration which is a marked feature in all the older Latin poets down even to Lucretius. In one considerable comic fragment attributed to himthe description of a coquettethere is great truth and shrewdness of observation. But we find no trace of the exuberant comic power and geniality of his great contemporary. Tragedy is a form of drama characterized by seriousness and dignity, usually involving a conflict between a character and some higher power, such as the law, the gods, fate, or society. ... Marcus Pacuvius (c. ... Lucius Accius, a Roman tragic poet, the son of a freedman, was born at Pisaurum in Umbria, in 170 BC. The year of his death is unknown, but he must have lived to a great age, since Cicero (Brutus, 28) speaks of having conversed with him on literary matters. ... Grammar is the study of the rules governing the use of a language. ... Caecilius Statius, or Statius Caecilius (died 168 (or 166) BC) was a Roman comic poet. ... Titus Maccius Plautus was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. ... Publius Terentius Afer, better known as Terence, was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. ... Titus Livius (around 59 BC - 17 AD), known as Livy in English, wrote a monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, from its founding (traditionally dated to 753 BC). ... The Second Punic War was fought between Carthage and Rome from 218 to 202 BC. It was the second of three major wars fought between the Phoenician colony of Carthage, and the Roman Republic, then still confined to the Italian Peninsula. ... Scipio (plural, Scipiones) is a Roman cognomen used by a branch of the Cornelii family. ... Titus Lucretius Carus (c. ...

He was not only the oldest native dramatist, but the first author of an epic poem (Bellum Punicum) which, by combining the representation of actual contemporary history, with a mythical background, may be said to have created the Roman type of epic poetry. The poem was one continuous work, but was divided into seven books by a grammarian of a later age. The earlier part of it treated of the mythical adventures of Aeneas in Sicily, Carthage and Italy, and borrowed from the interview of Zeus and Thetis in the first book of the Iliad the idea of the interview of Jupiter and Venus; which Virgil has made one of the cardinal passages in the Aeneid. The later part treated of the events of the first Punic war in the style of a metrical chronicle. 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. Aeneas (or Aineias) was a Trojan hero, the son of prince Anchises and the goddess Venus. ... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,700 sq. ... A map of the central Mediterranean Sea, showing the location of Carthage (near modern Tunis). ... Statue of Zeus The Greek sculptor Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall Statue of Zeus in about 435 bc. ... This article is about the Greek nymph. ... The Iliad tells the story of the Trojan War and is, along with the Odyssey, one of the two major Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer, a blind Ionian poet. ... In Roman mythology, Jupiter (sometimes shortened to Jove) held the same role as Zeus in the Greek pantheon. ... Venus is the Roman goddess of love, equivalent to Greek Aphrodite and Etruscan Turan. ... The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy where he became the ancestor of the Romans. ... Walls of the excavated city of Troy (Turkey) This article is about the city of Troy / Ilion as described in the works of Homer, and the location of an ancient city associated with it. ... Hexameter is a literary and poetic form, consisting of six metrical feet per line as in the Iliad. ...

The impression we get of the man is that, whether or not he actually enjoyed the full rights of Roman citizenship, he was a vigorous representative of the bold combative spirit of the ancient Roman commons. He was one of those who made the Latin language into a great organ of literature. The phrases still quoted from him have nothing of an antiquated sound, while they have a genuinely idiomatic ring. 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. The power of Naevius was the more genuine Italian gift the power of satiric criticism which was employed in making men ridiculous, not, like that of Plautus, in extracting amusement from the humours, follies and eccentricities of life. 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. Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Umbria is a mountainous region of central Italy, in the valley of the river Tiber. ...

Fragments (dramas) in Lucian Müller, Livi Andronici et Gn. Naevi Fabularum Reliquiae (1885), and (Bellum Punicum) in his edition of Ennius (1884); monographs by E Klussmann (1843); MJ Berchem (1861); D de Moor (1877); Mommsen, History of Rome, bk. iii., ch. 24. On Virgil's indebtedness to Naevius and Ennius, see V Crivellari, Quae praecipue hausit Vergitius ex Naevio et Ennio (1889). Lucian Müller (17 March 1836 - 24 April 1898), was a German classical scholar. ... Christian Matthias Theodor Mommsen (30 November 1817 - 1 November 1903) was a German classical scholar and historian, generally regarded as the greatest classicist of the 19th century. ...

Reference

• This entry incorporates public domain text originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.