Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
The corrigenda et addenda listed on page xvi have been applied to the text.
Page 167: Original text 'curosity' replaced with 'curiosity'.
Page 139: Original text in footnote 'Thon' replaced with 'Thou'.
Page 359: Latin 'At, credo' more usually seen as 'An, credo' but text in this book not altered.
THE ROMAN POETS
OF
THE REPUBLIC
SELLAR
London
HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
7 PATERNOSTER ROW
THE ROMAN POETS
OF
THE REPUBLIC
BY
W. Y. SELLAR, M.A., LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
AND
FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD
NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
MDCCCLXXXI
[All rights reserved]
TO
J. C. SHAIRP, M.A. LL.D.,
PRINCIPAL OF THE UNITED COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS,
PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT
OF MUCH ACTIVE AND GENEROUS KINDNESS,
AND OF
A LONG AND STEADY FRIENDSHIP,
THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In preparing a second edition of this volume, which has been for someyears out of print, I have, with the exception of a few pages added toChapter IV, retained the first five chapters substantially unchanged.Chapters VI and VII, on Roman Comedy, are entirely new. I have enlargedthe account formerly given of Lucilius in Chapter VIII, and modifiedthe Review of the First Period, contained in Chapter IX. The shortintroductory chapter to the Second Period is new. The four chapters onLucretius have been carefully revised, and, in part, re-written. Thechapter on Catullus has been re-written and enlarged, and the viewsformerly expressed in it have been modified.
In the preface to the first edition I acknowledged the assistance Ihad derived from the editions of the Fragments of the early writers byKlussman, Vahlen, Ribbeck, and Gerlach; from the Histories of RomanLiterature by Bernhardy, Bähr, and Munk, and from the chapters onRoman Literature in Mommsen's Roman History; from a treatise on theorigin of Roman Poetry, by Corssen; from Sir G. C. Lewis's work on 'TheCredibility of Early Roman History'; from the Articles on the RomanPoets by the late Professor Ramsay, contained in Smith's 'Dictionaryof Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology';[viii] and from Articles by Mr.Munro in the 'Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology.' In additionto these I have, in the present edition, to acknowledge my indebtednessto the History of Roman Literature by W. S. Teuffel, to Ribbeck's'Römische Tragödie,' to Ritschl's 'Opuscula,' to the