“Nihil credo auguribus qui aures verbis divitant
Alienas, suas ut auro locupletent domos.”
The argument of Attius’ other drama, founded on a Roman subject, and belonging to the class called Prætextatæ, was the patriotic self-devotion of Publius Decius, who, when his army could no longer sustain the onset of the foe, threw himself into the thickest of the combat, and was despatched by the darts of the enemy. There were at least two of the family of Decii, a father and son, who had successively devoted themselves in this manner—the former in a contest with the Latins, the latter in a war with the Gauls, leagued to the Etruscans, in the year of Rome 457. No doubt, however, can exist, that it was the son who was the subject of the tragedy of Attius—in the first place, because he twice talks of following the example of his father—
“—— Patrio
Exemplo dicabo me, atque animam devotabo hostibus.”
And again—
“Quibus rem summam et patriam nostram quondam adauctavit pater.”
And, in the next place, he refers, in two different passages, to the opposing host of the Gauls—
—— “Gallei, voce canora ac fremitu,
Peragrant minitabiliter ——