[4] The passages on which this theory was founded are chiefly the following:—"Cic. Brut. xix. utinam extarent illa carmina, quae multis saeculis ante suam aetatem in epulis esse cantitata a singulis convivis de clarorum virorum laudibus in Originibus seriptum reliquit Cato." Cf. Tusc. i. 2, 3, and iv. 2, s.f. Varro, as quoted by Non, says: "In conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in quibus laudes erant maiorum, et assa voce et cum tibicine." Horace alludes to the custom, Od. iv. 15, 27, sqq.
[5] Poeticae arti honos uon erat: si qui in ea re studebat, aut sese ad convivia adplicabat, grassator vocabatur.—Cato ap. Aul Gell. N.A. xi. 2, 5.
[6] In his epitaph.
[7] See Mommsen Hist. i. p. 240.
[8] It is a term of contempt in Ennius, "_quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant."
[9] Virg. Ecl. ix. 34.
[10] Fest. p. 333a, M.
[11] Ep. ii. 1, 162.
[12] It has been argued from a passage in Livy (ix. 36), "Habeo auctores vulgo tum Romanos pueros, sicut nunc Graecis, ita Etruscis literis erudiri solitos," that literature at Rome must be dated from the final conquest of Etruria (294 B.C.); but the Romans had long before this date been familiar with Etruscan literature, such as it was. We have no ground for supposing that they borrowed anything except the art of divination, and similar studies. Neither history nor dramatic poetry was cultivated by the Etruscans.
[13] Others, again, explain fascinum as = phallos, and regard the songs as connected with the worship of the reproductive power in nature. This seems alien from the Italian system of worship, though likely enough to have existed in Etruria. If it ever had this character, it must have lost it before its introduction into Rome.