In philosophy he had been a pupil of Antiochus, and attached himself to the Academy with something of a leaning to the Stoics.
Cicero ranges these poets here in chronological order.
Ennius was born at Rudiæ in Calabria, b.c. 239, of a very noble family. He was brought to Rome by M. Porcius Cato at the end of the second Punic war. His plays were all translations or adaptations from the Greek; but he also wrote a poetical history of Rome called Annales, in eighteen books, and a poem on his friend Scipio Africanus; some Satires, Epigrams, and one or two philosophical poems. Only a few lines of his works remain to us. He died at the age of seventy.
Pacuvius was a native of Brundusium, and a relation, probably a nephew, of Ennius. He was born about b.c. 220, and lived to about the year b.c. 130. His works were nearly entirely tragedies translated from the Greek. Horace, distinguishing between him and Accius, says—
“Aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis; Accius alti.”—Epist. II. i. 55.
Cæcilius Statius was the predecessor of Terence; by birth an Insubrian Gaul and a native of Milan. He died b.c. 165, two years before the representation of the Andria of Terence. He was considered by the Romans as a great master of the art of exciting the feelings. And Cicero (de Opt. Gen. Dic. 1.) speaks of him as the chief of the Roman Comic writers. Horace says—
Vincere Cæcilius gravitate, Terentius arte.
Lucius Afranius lived about 100 b.c. His comedies were chiefly togatæ, depicting Roman life; he borrowed largely from Menander, to whom the Romans compared him. Horace says—
Dicitur Afranî toga convenisse Menandro.
Cicero praises his language highly (Brut. 45).