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,
Ingenio arbusta ubi nata sunt, non obsita[15].
He composed a number of comedies, and also some original plays, founded on events in Roman history,—one of them called Romulus, or Alimonia Romuli et Remi. The longest of the fragments attributed to him is a passage from a comedy, which has been, with less probability, attributed to Ennius. It is a description of a coquette, and shows considerable power of close satiric observation:—