The poem was written in eighteen books. Of these books about six hundred lines have been preserved in fragments, varying from about twenty lines to half a line in length. From the minuteness with which comparatively unimportant matters are described, it is inferred that the separate books extended to a much greater length than those either of the Iliad or of the Aeneid. Of the first book there remain about 120 lines, including the dream of Ilia in seventeen lines, and the auspices of Romulus in twenty lines. In it were narrated the mythical events from the time
Quum veter occubuit Príamus sub marte Pelasgo,
to the death and deification of Romulus;
Romulus in caelo cum dis genitalibus aevum
Degit.
There is no allusion in these fragments to the Carthaginian adventures of Aeneas, which Naevius had introduced into his poem on the First Punic War. Aeneas seems at once to have been brought to Hesperia, a land,
Quam prisci casci populi tenuere Latini.
Ilia is represented as the daughter of Aeneas. The birth and infancy of Romulus and Remus appear to have been described at great length. In commenting on Virgil's lines at Aeneid viii. 630—
Fecerat et viridi fetam Mavortis in antro