EARLY MINOR AUTHORS.
(a) POETS:
The poetical contemporaries of Terence were:
1. Titinius, the first writer of togatae; fifteen titles and about one hundred and eighty lines of fragments are extant. He probably began to write after Terence’s death.
2. Sextus Turpilius.—We have titles of thirteen of his palliatae, six of which are probably from Menander. He died B.C. 103, probably about eighty.
Jerome yr. Abr. 1914 = B.C. 103, ‘Turpilius comicus senex admodum Sinuessae moritur.’
3. Iuventius, Valerius, and Vatronius wrote palliatae; P. Licinius Tegula a hymn to Juno, B.C. 200 (Livy xxxi. 12); Q. Fabius Labeo (cos. B.C. 183) and M. Popillius Laenas (cos. 173) were poets.
(b) PROSE WRITERS:
Fabius Pictor was the earliest Roman historian: Liv. i. 44, 2, ‘scriptorum antiquissimus Fabius Pictor.’ A relative of Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator (Plut. Fab. Max. 18), he took part in the war with the Cisalpine Gauls, B.C. 225 (Eutropius, iii. 5), and after the battle of Cannae was sent by the Senate on a mission to the oracle of Delphi (Liv. xxii. 57, 5).
Fabius wrote in Greek an account of the Second Punic War, prefixed to which was a sketch of the history of Rome from its foundation: Liv. xxii. 7, 4, ‘Fabium aequalem temporibus huiusce belli potissimum auctorem habui.’ There was also a Latin version, made either by Fabius Pictor or by a namesake (Gell. v. 4, 3).
The same subject was treated by L. Cincius Alimentus, who was praetor B.C. 210 (Liv. xxvi. 23, i), and took an active part in the war in Sicily during the next two years (Liv. xxvii. 7, 12, and throughout that Book). He was taken prisoner by Hannibal, and conversed with him: Liv. xxi. 38, 3, ‘L. Cincius Alimentus, qui captum se ab Hannibale scribit, maxime auctor moveret ...’
Both Fabius and Cincius wrote in Greek, and both gave a cursory view of the earlier history: Dion. Hal. i. 6, ῾Ρωμαίων ὅσοι τὰ παλαιὰ ἔργα τῆς πόλεως Ἑλληνικῇ διαλέκτῳ συνέγραψαν, ὧν εἰσι πρεσβύτατοι Κόϊντός τε Φάβιος καὶ Λεύκιος Κίγκιος ... τούτων δὲ τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἑκατέρος οἷς μὲν αὐτὸς ἕργοις παρεγένετο, διὰ τὴν ἐμπειρίαν ἀκριβῶς ἀνέγραψε, τὰ δὲ ἀρχαῖα τὰ μετὰ τὴν κτίσιν τῆς πόλεως γενόμενα κεφαλαιωδῶς ἐπέδραμεν.