Gnaeus Naevius

Gnaeus Naevius (/ˈniːviəs/; c. 270[1] – c. 201 BC)

was a Roman epic poet and dramatist of the Old
Latin period. He had a notable literary career at
Rome until his satiric comments delivered in comedy
angered the Metellus family, one of whom was
consul. After a sojourn in prison he recanted and was
set free by the tribunes (who had the tribunician
power, in essence the power of habeas corpus). After
a second offense he was exiled to Tunisia, where he
wrote his own epitaph and committed suicide. His
Theater in Pompeii
comedies were in the genre of Palliata Comoedia, an
adaptation of Greek New Comedy. A soldier in the
Punic Wars, he was highly patriotic, inventing a new genre called Praetextae Fabulae, an extension of
tragedy to Roman national figures or incidents, named after the Toga praetexta worn by high officials. Of
his writings there survive only fragments of several poems preserved in the citations of late ancient
grammarians (Charisius, Aelius Donatus, Sextus Pompeius Festus, Aulus Gellius, Isidorus Hispalensis,
Macrobius, Nonius Marcellus, Priscian, Marcus Terentius Varro).

Contents
Biography
Works
Surviving titles and fragments
Editions
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links

Biography
Much of the information concerning the life of Naevius is coloured by uncertainty. Aulus Gellius
describes the epitaph of Naevius as demonstrating "Campanian arrogance," based on which statement it
has been suggested that Naevius was a native of Campania.[2] The phrase "Campanian arrogance" seems,
however, to have been a proverbial or idiomatic phrase indicating boastfulness.[3] Further, the fact that
there was a plebeian gens Naevia in Rome, makes it quite possible, even likely, that Naevius was a
Roman citizen by birth. He served either in the Roman army or among the socii in the First Punic War,
and thus must have reached manhood before 241.
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 insistence he
was imprisoned.[4] After writing two plays during his imprisonment, in which he is said to have
apologized for his former rudeness,[5] 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 his own epitaph, written in
saturnian verse:

Immortales mortales si foret fas If immortals were allowed to weep for mortals,
flere, the divine Muses would weep for the poet
flerent diuae Camenae Naeuium Naevius.
poetam. And so after he was delivered to the strongbox
itaque, postquam est Orchi traditus of Orc[h]us,
thesauro, Romans forgot how to speak the Latin
obliti sunt Romani loquier lingua language.[6]
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. Unlike Livius Andronicus, Naevius was a native Italian, not a Greek; he was also an original
writer, not a mere adapter or translator. If it is due to Livius that the forms of Latin literature were, from
the first, molded on those of Greek literature, it is due to Naevius that much of its spirit and substance
was of native growth.

Works
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 Troianus, the
last named being performed at the opening of Pompey's theatre (55 BC). 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 BC).

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 Volcatius 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. Naevius'
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 arena 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 members of the
aristocracy, the great Scipio is the object of a censorious criticism on account of a youthful escapade
attributed to him.[7] 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.

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.

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, though 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.

Surviving titles and fragments

Acontizomenos (a Figulus ("The Potter," a comedy)

comedy) Glaucoma ("The Cataract," a comedy)
Aegisthus Hariolus ("The Fortune-Teller," comedy)
("Aegisthus," a
Hector Proficiscens ("Hector Setting Forth," tragedy)
tragedy)
Leo ("The Lion," a comedy)
Aesiona (a tragedy)
Agitatoria (a comedy) Lycurgus ("Lycurgus," a tragedy)[8]
Agrypnuntes Nautae ("Sailors", a comedy)
("Sleepless People," a Paelex ("The Concubine," or "Mistress", comedy)
comedy) Personata ("Lady Wearing a Mask," comedy)
Appella (a comedy) Projectus (a comedy)
Astiologa (a comedy) Quadrigemini ("The Quadruplets," a comedy)
 Clastidium ("The Romulus, or Alimonium Romuli et Remi ("The
Fortress," a fabula Nourishing of Romulus and Remus", a fabula
praetexta) praetexta)
Colax ("The Flatterer," Stalagmus (a comedy)
a comedy) Stigmatias ("The Tattooed Man," a comedy)
Corollaria ("The Tarentilla (a comedy)
Garlands," a comedy)
Triphallus ("The Man With Three Penises," a
Danae ("Danae," a comedy)
tragedy)
Dementes ("Crazy
People," a comedy)
Dolus ("The Trick," a
comedy)
Equus Troianus ("The
Trojan Horse," a
tragedy)

Editions
M. Barchiesi. Nevi epico; storia, interpretazione, edizione critica dei frammenti del primo
epos latino, Padova, 1962
Fragments (dramas) in Lucian Müller, Livi Andronici et Gn. Naevi Fabularum Reliquiae
(1885), and (Bellum Punicum) in his edition of Ennius (1884).
W. Morel, Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum Epicorum et Lyricorum praeter Ennium et
Lucilium (Leipzig, 1927)
E. H. Warmington, Remains of Old Latin, vol. II, Livius Andronicus, Naevius, Pacuvius,
Accius, 1936.
Naeuius Poeta. Introduzione bibliografica. Testo dei frammenti e commento, éd. E. V.
Marmorale, Florence, 2e éd. 1950.
Alfred Klotz, Scaenicorum Romanorum fragmenta, vol. I, Tragicorum fragmenta, München,
1953.

See also
Old Latin
Saturnian (poetry)
Theatre of ancient Rome

Notes
1. "FJCL Latin Literature Study Guide" (http://www.fjcl.org/uploads/4/3/4/0/4340783/latin_lit_st
udy_guide.pdf) (PDF). Florida Junior Classical League. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
2. Gellius 1.24.1 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Gellius/1*.html#24).
3. The Encyclopedia Britannica (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=uM0sRPoABq8C&pg=P
A162). 1899. p. 162. Retrieved 10 April 2017.
4. Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 211.
5. Gellius 3.3.15 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Gellius/3*.html#3).
6. Quoted by Gellius (1.24.2 (http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Gellius/1*.h
tml#24)); this is Naevius fr. 64 in Morel's Fragmenta Poetarum Latinorum Epicorum et
Lyricorum praeter Ennium et Lucilium (Leipzig, 1927).
7. Metelli: Varia, 2 (http://www.attalus.org/poetry/naevius.html#v2); Scipio: Unassigned
Fragments, 1 (http://www.attalus.org/poetry/naevius.html#u1) (in Warmington's edition).
8. Thorburn, John E. (2005). Naevius (https://books.google.com/books?id=k3NnUyqzRNYC&p
g=PA361&lpg=PA361). The Facts on File Companion to Classical Drama. Infobase
Publishing. p. 361. ISBN 9780816074983. Retrieved 4 February 2016.

References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm,
Hugh, ed. (1911). "Naevius, Gnaeus". Encyclopædia Britannica. 19 (11th ed.). Cambridge
University Press. pp. 149–150.

Further reading
Barchiesi, M. (1978). La Tarentilla revisitata: studi su Nevio comico, Pisa: Giardini.
Berchem, M. J. (1861). De Gn. Naevii poetae vita et scriptis (http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Re
cord/011605020), Monasterii: Coppenrath.
Conte, G. B. (1994). Latin Literature: A History. Translated by Joseph B. Solodow. Revised
by Don Fowler and Glenn W. Most. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Crivellari, V. (1889). Quae praecipue hausit Vergilius ex Naevio et Ennio . (On Virgil's
indebtedness to Naevius and Ennius.)
de Melo, W. (2014). Plautus’s Dramatic Predecessors and Contemporaries in Rome. The
Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
de Moor, D. (1877). Cn. Névius, essai sur les commencements de la poésie à Rome (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=qxoyBM7IASEC), Tournai: Decallonne-Liagre.
Faber, R. (2012). The Ekphrasis in Naevius' "Bellum Punicum" and Hellenistic Literary
Aesthetics. Hermes, 140(4), 417-426.
Feeney, D. C. (1991). The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Flintoff, E. (1988). Naevius and Roman Satire. Latomus, 47(3), 593-603.
Jocelyn, H. D. (1969). The Poet Cn. Naevius, P. Cornelius Scipio, and Q. Caecilius
Metellus. Antichthon 3:32–47.
Klussmann, E. (1843). Cn. Naevii Poetae Romani Vitam Descripsit, Carminum Reliquias
Collegit, Poesis Rationem Exposuit (in Latin). Ienae: Apud Carolum Hochhausen.
Krostenko, B. (2013). The Poetics of Naevius' 'Epitaph' and the History of Latin Poetry. The
Journal of Roman Studies, 103, 46-64.
Luck, G. (1983). Naevius and Virgil. Illinois Classical Studies, 8(2), 267-275.
Manuwald, Gesine, ed. (2000). Identität und Alterität in der frührömischen Tragödie.
Identitäten und Alteritäten, Bd. 3, Altertumswiss. Reihe, Bd. 1. Würzburg, Germany:
Universitats Verlag.
Mommsen, T. History of Rome, bk. iii, ch. 24.
Rowell, H. (1947). The Original Form of Naevius' Bellum Punicum. The American Journal of
Philology, 68(1), 21-46.

External links
 "Gnaeus Gnaevius" (http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/nae_intr.html). Bibliotheca
Augustana. 2009. Retrieved 15 October 2009.
"Naevius" (http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/naevius.html). The Latin Library. 2009. Retrieved
15 October 2009.
"Naevius: text and translation" (http://www.attalus.org/poetry/naevius.html). attalus.org.
2014. Retrieved 6 May 2014.
"Fragments de C. Naevius"
(http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/tragediens/naevius/fragments.htm). remacle.org. 2014.
Retrieved 19 June 2014.

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