a countryman of his own, Volusius[6], the author of a long Annalistic epic, is held up by Catullus to especial obloquy.
While so much of the literature of that age has perished, we are fortunate in possessing the works of the greatest authors in prose and verse. The poems of Lucretius and Catullus enable us, better perhaps than any other extant Latin works, to appreciate the most opposite capacities and tendencies of the Roman genius. In their force and individuality, they are alike valuable as the last poetic voices of the Republic, and as, perhaps, the most free and sincere voices of Rome. The first is one of the truest representatives of the national strength, majesty, seriousness of spirit, massive constructive energy; the second is the most typical example of the strong vitality and passionate ardour of the Italian temperament and of its vivid susceptibility to the varied beauties of Greek art.
[1] Mr. Munro, in his Introduction to Part II of his Commentary on Lucretius, illustrates this relation of the work of the poet to this youthful production of Cicero.
[2] v. 1451.
[3] ii. 412; cf. also ii. 505-6:—
Et cycnea mele Phoebeaque daedala chordis
Carmina consimili ratione oppressa silerent.
These lines point to the union of music and lyrical poetry.
[4] Cp. the passages quoted from Quintilian, Lactantius, etc. by W.S. Teuffel, Wagner's Translation, p. 239.
[5] Annals, iv. 34.