It is, however, doubted whether the first of these lines was really written by Naevius, as the Metelli did not enjoy their rapid succession of consulships till nearly a century after his death; but even at the time of the Second Punic War they were powerful enough to procure the imprisonment of the poet, in consequence of some offence which he had given them. Plautus[35] alludes to this event, in one of the few passages in which Latin comedy deviates from the conventional life of Athenian manners to notice the actual circumstances of the time. While in prison, he composed two plays (the Hariolus and Leon), which contained some retractation of his former attacks, and he was liberated through the interference of the Tribunes of the Commons. Being afterwards banished, he took up his residence at Utica, where he is said by Cicero, on the authority of ancient records, to have died, in B.C. 204[36], though the same author adds that Varro, 'diligentissimus investigator antiquitatis,' believed that he was still alive for some time after that date[37]. It is inferred, from a passage in Cicero[38], that his poem on the First Punic War was composed in his old age. Probably it was written in his exile, when removed from the sphere of his active literary efforts. As he served in that war, some time between B.C. 261 and B.C. 241, he must have been well advanced in years at the time of his death.
The best known of all the fragments of Naevius, and the most favourable specimen of his style, is his epitaph:—
Mortales immortales flere si foret fas,
Flerent divae Camenae Naevium poetam,
Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,
Obliti sunt Romae loquier Latina lingua.
It has been supposed that this epitaph was written as a dying protest against the Hellenising influence of Ennius; but as Ennius came to Rome for the first time about B.C. 204, it is not likely, even if the life of Naevius was prolonged somewhat beyond that date, that the fame and influence of his younger rival could have spread so rapidly as to disturb the peace of the old poet in his exile. It might as fairly be regarded as proceeding from a jealousy of the merits of Plautus, as from hostility to the innovating tendency of Ennius. The words of the epitaph are simply expressive of the strong self-assertion and independence which Naevius maintained till the end of his active and somewhat turbulent career.
He wrote a few tragedies, of which scarcely anything is known except the titles,—such as the Andromache, Equus Trojanus, Hector Proficiscens, Lycurgus,—the last founded on the same subject as the Bacchae of Euripides. The titles of nearly all these plays, as well as of the plays of Livius, imply the prevailing interest taken in the Homeric poems, and in all the events connected with the Trojan War. The following passage from the Lycurgus has some value as containing the germs of poetical diction:—
Vos, qui regalis corporis custodias
Agitatis, ite actutum in frundiferos locos,