The time of his birth is unknown, but it is probable that his public career commenced within a very few years after that of Livius. Gellius fixes the exhibition of his first drama in B. C. 235,[[127]] and Cicero places his death in the consulship of M. Cornelius Cethegus and P. Sempronius Tuditanus,[[128]] although he allows that Varro, who places it somewhat later, is the most pains-taking of Roman antiquarians. It is also certain that he died at an advanced age, for, according to Cicero, he was an old man when he wrote one of his poems. He was the author of an epic poem, the title of which was the Punic War; but, owing to the popularity of dramatic literature, his earliest literary productions were tragedies and comedies. The titles of most of these show that their subjects were Greek legends or stories. It was, therefore, in his epic poem that the acknowledged originality of his talents was mainly displayed. Nævius was a strong political partisan, a warm supporter of the people against the encroachments of the nobility. In consequence of the expenditure during the war, great part of the population was reduced to poverty, and a strong line of demarkation was drawn between the rich and the poor. The estrangement and want of sympathy between those two classes were daily increasing. The barrier of caste was indeed almost destroyed, but that of class was beginning to be erected in its stead. The passing of the Licinian bills[[129]] had led to the gradual rise of a plebeian nobility. The Ogulnian law[[130]] had admitted patrician and plebeian to a religious as well as political equality, and more than three-quarters of a century had passed away since Appius Claudius the blind[[131]] had given political existence to the freedmen by admitting them into the tribes, and had even raised some whose fathers had been freedmen to the rank of senators, to the exclusion of many distinguished plebeians who had filled curule offices. The object which he proposed to himself by this policy was undoubtedly the depression of the rising plebeian nobility, and this object was for a time attained; but the ultimate result was a vast increase in the numbers and the power of those who were opposed to the old patrician nobility, by the formation of a higher class, the only qualification for admission into which was wealth and intelligence. According to the old distinctions of rank it was necessary that even a plebeian should have a pedigree; his father and grandfather must have been born free. Appius, when chosen for the first time, waived this, and introduced a new principle of political party. Of this anti-aristocratic party Nævius was the literary representative, and the vehement opponent of privileges derived from the accident of birth. His position, too, was calculated to provoke a man of better temper. He was a Roman citizen, but, as a native of a municipal town, he did not possess the full franchise which he saw enjoyed by others around him who were intellectually inferior to himself, and the sense of his political inferiority was galling to him. Accordingly he used literature as a new and powerful instrument to foster the jealousy which existed between the orders of the state. He attacked the principle of an aristocracy of birth in the persons of some members of the most distinguished families. He held up Scipio Africanus to ridicule by making him the hero of a tale of scandal.
Etiam qui res magnas manu gessit sæpe gloriose,
Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solas
Præstat, eum suus pater cum pallio una ab amica abduxit.
The public services of the two Metelli could not shield them from the poet’s bitterness, which attributed their consulships not to their own merits, but to the mere will of fate.[[132]] One bitter sentence, “Fato Metelli Romæ fiunt consules.” made that powerful family his enemies. The Metellus, who at that time held the office of consul, threatened him with vengeance for his slander in the following verse:—“Dabunt malum Metelli Nævio poetæ.” and the offending poet was indicted for a libel, in pursuance of a law of the Twelve Tables,[[133]] and thrown into prison. Whilst there he composed two pieces, in which he expressed contrition; and Plautus[[134]] describes him as watched by two jailers, pensively resting his head upon his hands:—
Nam os columnatum poetæ esse inaudivi barbaro,
Quoi bini custodes semper totis horis accubant.
Through the influence of the tribunes he was set at liberty.[[135]] As, however, is frequently the case, he could not resist indulging again in his satiric vein, and he was exiled to Utica, where he died,[[136]] having employed the last years of his life in writing his epic poem. The following laudatory epitaph was written by himself:—
Mortales immortales flere si foret fas,
Flerent Divæ Camenæ Nævium poetam.