who was the nephew of Ennius[328], by a sister of that poet, was born at Brundusium, in the year 534. At Rome he became intimately acquainted with Lælius, who, in Cicero’s treatise De Amicitiâ, calls Pacuvius his host and friend: He also enjoyed, like Terence, the intimacy of Scipio Africanus; but he did not profit so much as the comic writer by his acquaintance with these illustrious Romans for the improvement of his style. There is an idle story, that Pacuvius had three wives, all of whom successively hanged themselves on the same tree; and that lamenting this to Attius, who was married, he begged for a slip of it to plant in his own garden[329]; an anecdote which has been very seriously confuted by Annibal di Leo, in his learned Memoir on Pacuvius. This poet also employed himself in painting: he was one of the first of [pg 210]the Romans who attained any degree of eminence in that elegant art, and particularly distinguished himself by the picture which he executed for the temple of Hercules, in the Forum Boarium[330]. He published his last piece at the age of eighty[331]; after which, being oppressed with old age, and afflicted with perpetual bodily illness, he retired, for the enjoyment of its soft air and mild winters, to Tarentum[332], where he died, having nearly completed his ninetieth year[333]. An elegant epitaph, supposed to have been written by himself, is quoted, with much commendation, by Aulus Gellius, who calls it verecundissimum et purissimum[334]. It appears to have been inscribed on a tombstone which stood by the side of a public road, according to a custom of the Romans, who placed their monuments near highways, that the spot where their remains were deposited might attract observation, and the departed spirit receive the valediction of passing travellers:
“Adolescens, tametsi properas, hoc te saxum rogat,
Uti ad se aspicias; deinde, quod scriptum est, legas.
Hic sunt poetæ Marcei Pacuviei sita
Ossa. Hoc volebam nescius ne esses—Vale[335].”
Though a few fragments of the tragedies of Pacuvius remain, our opinion of his dramatic merits can be formed only at second hand, from the observations of those critics who wrote while his works were yet extant. Cicero, though he blames his style, and characterizes him as a poet male loquutus[336], places him on the same level for tragedy as Ennius for epic poetry, or Cæcilius for comedy; and he mentions, in his treatise De Oratore, that his verses were by many considered as highly laboured and adorned.—“Omnes apud hunc ornati elaboratique sunt versus.” It was in this laboured polish of versification, and skill in the dramatic conduct of the scene, that the excellence of Pacuvius chiefly consisted; for so the lines of Horace have been usually interpreted, [pg 211]where, speaking of the public opinion entertained concerning the different dramatic writers of Rome, he says,—
“Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior: aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis, Attius alti.”
And the same meaning must be affixed to the passage in Quintilian,—“Virium tamen Attio plus tribuitur; Pacuvium videri doctiorem, qui esse docti adfectant, volunt[337].” Most other Latin critics, though on the whole they seem to prefer Attius, allow Pacuvius to be the more correct writer.
The names are still preserved of about 20 tragedies of Pacuvius—Anchises, Antiope, Armorum Judicium, Atalanta, Chryses, Dulorestes, Hermione, Iliona, Medus, Medea, Niptra, Orestes et Pylades, Paulus, Peribœa, Tantalus, Teucer, Thyestes. Of these the Antiope was one of the most distinguished. It was regarded by Cicero as a great national tragedy, and an honour to the Roman name.—“Quis enim,” says he, “tam inimicus pene nomini Romano est, qui Ennii Medeam, aut Antiopam Pacuvii, spernat, aut rejiciat?” Persius, however, ridicules a passage in this tragedy, where Antiope talks of propping her melancholy heart with misfortunes, by which she means, (I suppose,) that she fortunately had so many griefs all around her heart, that it was well bolstered up, and would not break or bend so easily as it must have done, had it been supported by fewer distresses—