Ennius — Fabius Picior. 23 



gives many Etrurian names of birds ; but he is doubtful in their 

 application, — which shows that in his time the augurs had already- 

 lost the Etrurian traditions. It was the Greeks, then, who truly- 

 enlightened the Romans. The Roman colony of iEneas without 

 doubt carried with it their mythology. At a later period, as we have 

 already remarked, the Greeks established themselves on the coasts 

 of Italy. Graecia Magna always kept up communications with the 

 mother country : philosophers passed from one to the other ; the 

 two countries were but one. It was natural, then, that the Ro- 

 mans should derive their knowledge from the Greeks, the more 

 particularly as ambassadors were sent to them by this people ; but 

 the government discouraged the sciences and the arts, from a no- 

 tion that they tended to enervate men and unfit them for war. 

 During a long period Rome did not possess an author : more than 

 500 years passed before the poet Ennius appeared, and he was 

 born in a very distant part of Italy, in the town of Rudiae in Ca- 

 labria. This poet composed the annals of Rome in verse, and also 

 some tragedies. Fabius Pictor, a little younger than Ennius, but 

 nevertheless his contemporary, was the first prose historian. This 

 want of chronicles for so long a period explains the obscurity which 

 envelopes the first ages of the republic, whose history can only be 

 looked upon as authorized fables. 



Neither Ennius nor Fabius Pictor wrote any thing relating to 

 the natural sciences. After them came Cato the Censor, the first 

 Latin writer from whom a complete work has been handed down to 

 our times ; and of whom Cicero remarked, that he was the most an- 

 cient author worthy of being read. He wrote on history, morals, and 

 agriculture. He lodged, during one of his travels, with a Pytha- 

 gorean, and drew from him a smattering of Greek literature : 

 however he was not less constant to the old Roman customs, of 

 which he gave a proof on his return to Rome. A difference having 

 arisen between Athens and Scione, the Athenians chose the 

 Romans for arbiters, and sent to them, as deputies, Carneades, 

 leader of the third academy, and two peripatetics, Critolaiis and 

 Diogenes. These three persons made public speeches, and gave 

 lectures, to which the young Romans went in crowds. Cato was 

 so much alarmed at this novelty, that he quickly settled the matter 

 which had brought over the ambassadors, so as not to leave them a 

 pretext for remaining longer in the city. But when once the mind 

 is directed towards an object, it is not to be arrested by such means: 

 thus the Romans soon gave themselves up to the study of Greek 

 letters, and Cato himself, in his old age, after having struggled a 

 long time against the torrent, at length gave way to it. 



Cato has left us a treatise, De re rustica, which is rather a col- 

 lection of receipts than an exposition of a system of agriculture. 

 We find something of everything relative to the management of a 

 farming estate. He tells us how to conduct ourselves towards the 

 steward and the slaves,, and his advice on this subject is atrocious. 



