This introductory chapter treats the early history of Rome’s literature, who was interested in the topic and when, and also how they approached the subject. It notes that from the start Roman literature was deeply imitative of Greek, and that the other peoples of the Italian peninsula also played important roles in the creation of a native literature. Indeed, many of the original writers of Rome were non-Romans. Covers the epics of Livius Andronicus, Naevius, and Ennius.

The second chapter turns to the roots of Roman drama, a popular art form throughout our period. It locates Rome’s particular kind of theatre in the larger Italic context, outlines the major playwrights, who exist mostly in fragments, and devotes most of its energy to discussion of Plautus and Terence, the two comedic dramatists whose work survives in sufficient quantity. Themes include the importance of Greek models, the experience of attending a show, the style and tone of comedies, major plot structures, and important characters.

The sixth chapter covers the origins of Roman historiography. As usual, they are in Greece, and as usual the Romans do something rather different with their model. From its origins in Cato down to what many considered its perfect form in Livy, the Romans were deeply interested in their own pasts. But history-writing was not as it is in the modern world: the ancient historian did little of what we would consider research. Here again, therefore, literary elements were to the fore: choosing the right kind of story to tell and telling it in the right way were the important things. Discussions of Ennius, Cato, Caesar, Sallust, Asinius Pollio, and Livy.

The fourth chapter introduces several ‘personal voices’, immediately complicating our understanding of how personally to take them: the authors discussed here seem to offer us an unmitigated look at their inner lives, but Latin literature does not, for the most part, work like that. Through discussions of Lucilius, in-depth treatment of Catullus, and exploration of the letters of Cicero, we show the public nature even of what seems most personal.

Neither Hannibal nor Scipio participated at the Metaurus (207), but it was the war’s turning point: Ennius thought Juno was now at last reconciled with Rome, and Livy presented Rome’s victory over Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal as revenge for Cannae. Things looked bad for Rome after both consuls of 208, Marcellus and Crispinus, died in battle. Roman success was made possible by another reconciliation, between two old enemies the consuls Salinator and Nero. Nero’s forced march up Italy was enthusiastically greeted and fed en route. He returned south and threw Hasdrubal’s head before Hannibal’s camp. Appendix 8.1 concludes that Salinator was not a senior decemuir (priest) in 236. Appendix 8.2 discusses Roman battle vows and asks why Livy omitted Salinator’s Metaurus vow in his battle narrative. Appendix 8.3 examines the unusual joint triumph of Salinator and Nero. Appendix 8.4 shows another name (Sena) for Metaurus was current before Horace immortalized it.

In the two loci classici about Roman satire, Quintilian and Diomedes famously draw a bifurcation of the history of the genre into two strands, which often comes in handy for modern scholars. This chapter argues that this bifurcation is the result of a stratification of, and compromise between, at least two different views: a communis opinio held by most authors of satire of the Republican period and their readers, and the single but ‘authoritative’ view of Horace, who established meter as a formal criterion to define satire. This chapter traces the origins of both views by discussing the relevant sources, and shows how Horace’s Satires appropriated pre-existing ideas about the nature and history of the genre, innovated on key aspects of them, and became a source of original ideas in turn. A similar scheme applies to Quintilian and Diomedes too: their perspective combines previous stances, but this combination itself represents an innovation which influences our own view of Roman satire in turn. Thus, while focusing on Roman satire, this chapter discusses a more general dynamic in the creation of literary histories.

Human beings become scarcer than before in the simile world of the Aeneid, contributing to a tale about the loneliness and sorrow of human beings who struggle to connect with each other or to affect the world around them. Both Aeneas and the characters in the simile world are marked by solitude and isolation. The human characters in the simile world of the Aeneid share few strong ties with other creatures, and they often fail to affect the world around them in ways that their fellows in Greek epic would take for granted. In the story world, similes highlight moments of furor, the overpowering rage that underlies both love and war and threatens not simply Aeneas’ mission to found Rome but also the existence of a rational world order. Similes draw out isolation and overwhelming passion as two poles of emotion in the poem with little in between. They use new storytelling techniques that appear rarely or not at all in the similes of earlier epics, and they often lack an exit expression joining a simile to the story. These features weaken the conventional distinctions between similes and other components of epic narrative.

Chapter 5 takes up the work’s beginnings: why did Cicero choose Marcus Cornelius Cethegus as the first Roman orator? Appius Claudius Caecus made much more sense, and Cicero’s reasons for excluding Caecus from his canon tellingly reveal his literary-historical principles. The literary history presented ultimately justifies his own role as a literary historian and confirms his prejudices about the past, present, and future of oratory. His manicuring of the past emerges prominently in the perplexing “double history” of Greek oratory (26–51), which is a methodological template for Roman oratorical history, and in Ennius’ special place as a literary historian (57–9).

This paper reexamines the intertextual connection between Lucretius and Ennius from a multi-medial angle. Ennius’ tragedies were regularly revived in the late Republic, and selections from his epic Annals appear to have been recited in public contexts as well. These performances seem to have stood in a relationship of reciprocal influence with wall paintings, as stagings inspired painters, and their artwork influenced actors in turn. Accordingly, Lucretius treats Ennius’ works as particularly influential expressions of a harmful philosophy that threatens Epicurean ataraxia in a variety of contexts. Analyzing familiar points of contact between the two authors in Book One of On the Nature of Things and highlighting a number of as-yet undiscussed allusions, I argue that Lucretius equips his readers with the tools to challenge Ennius in all three of the relevant media, be it on the page, on the stage, or in images.

Discussion of Cicero’s use of Latin poetry (Lucilius’ Satires, Ennius’ Annales) as evidence of Roman history. Discussion of Cicero’s conceptualization of Latin poetry as artefact of Roman culture.

An exploration of the cultural mechanism of quotation in modernity and antiquity. An overview of the process of ancient poetic fragmentation (how fragments of poetry are made) and a brief history of scholarly editions and collections of Latin poetic fragments. An overview of techniques used by Cicero to quote poetry, and the impact of his methods upon the modern understanding of fragmentary Latin poetry.

This paper reexamines the intertextual connection between Lucretius and Ennius from a multi-medial angle. Ennius’ tragedies were regularly revived in the late Republic, and selections from his epic Annals appear to have been recited in public contexts as well. These performances seem to have stood in a relationship of reciprocal influence with wall paintings, as stagings inspired painters, and their artwork influenced actors in turn. Accordingly, Lucretius treats Ennius’ works as particularly influential expressions of a harmful philosophy that threatens Epicurean ataraxia in a variety of contexts. Analyzing familiar points of contact between the two authors in Book One of On the Nature of Things and highlighting a number of as-yet undiscussed allusions, I argue that Lucretius equips his readers with the tools to challenge Ennius in all three of the relevant media, be it on the page, on the stage, or in images.

Chapter 5 takes up the work’s beginnings: why did Cicero choose Marcus Cornelius Cethegus as the first Roman orator? Appius Claudius Caecus made much more sense, and Cicero’s reasons for excluding Caecus from his canon tellingly reveal his literary-historical principles. The literary history presented ultimately justifies his own role as a literary historian and confirms his prejudices about the past, present, and future of oratory. His manicuring of the past emerges prominently in the perplexing “double history” of Greek oratory (26–51), which is a methodological template for Roman oratorical history, and in Ennius’ special place as a literary historian (57–9).

The first person to write elegiac couplets in Latin, Ennius, already wrote a kind of epigram that we do not see in Greek: a paradox is stated, then a question is asked about the paradox, and an answer is given. The chapters shows the popularity of this ‘paradox epigram’ in Latin literature, particularly in Catullus and Martial, arguing that both of these poets, in different ways, deconstructed the form.

Horace’s Greek lyric predecessors all had a distinctive relationship to Homer, and Horace had a problem in following them, since there was not really a figure in Roman culture comparable to Homer, even if Ennius looked like it in some ways. In the first three books of his Odes, published in 23 BCE, Horace made very few references to epic. But in his fourth book, published in 13 BCE after the death of Virgil and the publication of the Aeneid in 19 BCE, Horace engages systematically with epic, explicitly with Homer and Ennius. The chapter argues that it is in fact the new classic of the Aeneid that is the real focus of interest. The chapter closes by asking why Horace deliberately ignored the work of Livy in a book of poetry that was so interested in how best to represent and commemorate the Roman past.

The chapter discusses Juno’s reconciliation with Jupiter at the end of Virgil’s Aeneid, arguing that the scene follows a model in Ennius’ Annales in which Juno and Jupiter reach an agreement over the foundation of Rome. It is argued that in both poems Juno’s reconciliation is partial and provisional and that she is not fully reconciled to Rome until the Second Punic War.

This chapter explores the central image of currus (chariot), and its top-of-line model, quadriga (the four-horse car), which occupy the most commanding position within the rhetoric of Roman transportation. Already a symbol of unique power and prestige due to its built-in, inherited features, this Roman vehicle takes most distinct shape in two powerful and complementary forms, the four-horse currus triumphalis, in which generals proudly paraded in the triumphal procession, and the currus circensis, the breakneck-fast racing vehicle of Roman chariot-racing. The chapter analyzes the rhetoric of currus in oscillation, alternating between examinations of some its winningest portraits of victory (on the battlefield and in the circus), on the one hand, and uncovering a series of unsettling representations of the danger and violence it claims to transcend. Visions of victorious currus in Ennius, in the story of Ratumena, and in Cicero are counterbalanced by an investigation of ‘chariot-talk’ in Plautus, explorations of the meaning of winning in Roman didactic, and telling versions of the story of Phaethon.