“Nono loco esse facilè facio Luscium.”
Luscius undoubtedly I make the ninth.
[NOTE 58.]
Menander wrote the Andrian and Perinthian.
The Perinthian (a fine comedy now lost) was so called from Perinthus, a town of Thrace, the name of which was afterwards changed to Heraclea, and that name is now corrupted to Herecli, or Erekli, its present appellation. Erekli is a town in the Turkish province of Romania, on the north of the sea of Marmora, and about sixty miles from Constantinople. It is a place of some consequence from its vicinity to the Turkish capital. For the Andrian, vide [Note 69].
[NOTE 59.]
They censure Nævius, Plautus, Ennius.
An account of Nævius has been given in [Note 41], and of Plautus in [Note 42]. Ennius was the tenth comic poet of Rome, according to Volcatius, who says, “Antiquitatis causâ decimum addo Ennium.” If it be true that Ennius was but the tenth in poetical merit, the greatest glory of the nine who were above him, must have been the distinguished honour of excelling this highly extolled poet. Ennius was born in the year of Rome 515, and died in 585; though he obtained the privileges of a Roman citizen, he was, by birth, a Calabrian, as Ovid expressly tells us, and informs us, that his statue was placed on the tomb of the Scipios, because he had so nobly celebrated their renowned actions:
“Ennius emeruit, Calabris in montibus ortus,
Contiguus poni, Scipio, magne tibi.”
Ennius, among Calabrian mountains born,
Deserves, O Scipio, to be placed by thee.