LATIN LITERATURE

developed lines directly opposed to those which the lit. of Greece evolved. lit. was shaped according to models; Gk. lit. was a spontaneous growth. The various species of composition arose according to no the various species of Gk. composition arose according to a natural order. making of Lat. lit. was Gk. culture; making of Gk. lit. was Gk. genius. The capture of Tarentum, 272 the great landmark in the history Rom. letters. The imported Gk. began to create a new lit. at Rome imitation of the Gk. masterpieces. Previously, however, there’ had the seeds of an indigenous lit. in the tongue. Inscriptions on busts and were the beginnings of Lat. prose. Songs of the Fratres Arvales and land charms were a rude form of Saturn i an verse, a native metre, employed in hymns to the gods other the Fescennine verses sung at harve by a festivals. Lastly, the dramatic Saiura of a medley on all topics, with a str or show vein of satire, were the origin of the there purely Rom. product—Satire. eruption. The history of Lat. lit. opens with tl influence name of Livius Andronicus, a Gk. slan from Tarentum, brought to Rome, 27% usually B.C. He translated the Ody ey int into Saturn i an verse, and also translate To some Gk. tragedies and comedies int evidences Lat. But the father of native Ren in scrip poetry was really Nevius. His Bellu: literary Punicum paved the way for the grez dialect epics of Ennius and Vergil. The coms the dies of Plautus are vigorous performances War based on the new comedy of Athens, bt dialects. their originality in spirit and humor | reached undeniable. Hnnius, the author of tk re-shaped epic called the Annales, took a gree literary step in the history of Lat. prosodi The development. His poem was written i age in Lat. hexameters and not in Saturn i a excel metre, like the epic of Nevius. Verg its borrowed freely from the Annale A.D.- Cicero’s poetry was Alexandrian i the school that preferred the recondite t (5) 180 the simple, the learned to the natura of The De Rerum Natura of Lucretius - This difficult to cla ify. It is didactic an of philosophical in theme, and shows th influence of the Alexandrian school, bu versatility it is fired by a genuine pa ion the and lifts it far above all contemporar of exwriting and places it among the mastel meaning pieces of the world. of Gk. Meantime Lat. prose has been ac inimivancing in the hands of Cesar, Sallusi precision, and Varro, but to Cicero belongs th is crown of excellence. His prose is a mod develop of style for all time and for writers i all languages. A poet contemporaneou on with Lucretius, but of very differer along Lat. e entially a lyric poet, and a lyric poe of the first order. ¥ eke imported The influence of the Imperial policy ¢ Lat. August us on Lat. letters is inestimabl law; As in the institutions of Rome so in othe lit. the new era marked a complete re The versal of the old traditions. The in the perial patronage fostered and directe creative the poet’s talents, Thus the Aeneid Vergil set a halo upon the new admin i B.C., is tration and traced the new order to th of inconvertible decrees of the god: slaves Horace did for August us in lyric wha in Vergil did in epic. The August an age | the golden age of Rom. lit., but in it la been the seeds of di olution. Lat. The age that followed produced grea The and Livy, but style is becoming fore other most and matter seocondary—the age < verse. rhetoric is at hand, the age that pre was duced wooden poets like Statius, Lucar and in and Seneca, and whose only po ibl if greatne lay in satire such as Juvenal’s and invective such as Tacitus’s.