The Republic. R O 
Roman character. To what cause are we to ascribe an im¬ 
provement so sudden, a revolution so extraordinary ? The 
answer is evident—to the conquest of Magna Gracia, and 
the intercourse opened to the Romans with the Greek colo¬ 
nies of Sicily. In the article Italy, we have shown, that 
from the earliest times, the different Hellenic tribes dis¬ 
charged their redundant population on Italy. At a later 
period, this determination led to the establishment of regular 
settlements in the southern parts of the peninsula, particu¬ 
larly on the coast which sweeps around the gulf of Tarentum. 
Most of these colonies date’from the century in which Rome 
was founded; and one (Cumae), was still more ancient. 
Importing along with them the manners and institutions ot 
the parent country, and retaining in the fine congenial cli¬ 
mate of southern Italy, all the vigour and elasticity of the 
Greek character, they soon made rapid advances in wealth 
and power, and attained great eminence in science, litera¬ 
ture, and philosophy. Crotona was immortabced by the 
presence and instruction of Pythagoras, to whom it is be¬ 
lieved, the true or Copernican system of the world was 
known. Herodotus, the father of history, and Lysias, 
whose orations are models of attic simplicity and elegance, 
were, in early youth, among the original founders of the 
colony of Thurium, which rose on the ruins of the volup¬ 
tuous Sybaris. The eclectic school of philosophy, the 
parent of so much genius and virtue, was founded in 
Magna Gracia. Archytas of Tarentum, the friend and 
disciple of Plato, was distinguished for his attainments in the 
sciences which treat of number and quantity, as well as for 
mechanical inventions. History and poetry were cultivated 
with an ardour and success worthy of the Grecian name. 
Lycus of Rhegium was the civil, and Glaucus of the same 
city, the literary historian of Magna Graecia. Orpheus of 
Grotona wrote a poem on the Argonautic expedition ; Ibicus 
of Rhegium was celebrated for his lyric productions; and the 
titles of two hundred and fifty comedies written by Alexis of 
Thurium, and said to have been composed in the happiest 
vein of the middle comedy of the Greeks, have been collected 
by the industry of Meursius. Locri produced a celebrated 
legislator, Zaleucas, whose laws continued in force for two 
centuries. But their progress in luxury was at least equal to 
their advances in literature and refinement. Luxury, which, 
in great states, is merely symptomatic of the general diffusion 
of wealth, and at once the effect and cause of prosperity, is, in 
small states, an undoubted index of decay and ruin. Nine 
patria proditiones, hinc rerum publicarum eversiones, 
kinc cum hostibus clandestina colloquia nasci ; nullum 
denique scelus, nullum malum facinas esse, ad quod 
suscipiendum non libido vo/uptatis impellent. Involved 
in a contest with the Romans, in which they were aided by 
the genius and military talents of Pyrrhus, they found means 
to protract the struggle, till at length in the year of Rome 
482, the capture of Tarentum decided the fate of Magna 
Gracia, of which the Romans now became masters. Many 
of the victors remained in the conquered provinces, while, on 
the other hand, such of its inhabitants as were most remarkable 
for their genius or literary acquirements repaired to Rome, 
where they fixed their residence. Seven years after this 
event the first punic war broke out, and Sicily, as is well 
known, became the scene of the great struggle between 
Carthage and Rome. None of the Greek colonies had 
risen to a greater pitch of splendour than Syracuse, a city 
founded by the Dorians of Corinth in the 19th year of Rome. 
This capital had reached the zenith both of political and 
literary renown, more than a century before the first Car¬ 
thaginian war, on the termination of which in 572 part of 
Sicily was ceded to the Romans. But the troubles which 
broke out on the death of Hiero II., the zealous and stedfast 
ally of the Romans, involved the Syracusians in a war with 
that people, which cost them their liberty, in the year of 
Rome', 541. The name of Archimedes alone—a name 
which, in the history of science, is entitled to take its place 
next to Newton himself—would have immortalized Syracuse, 
while the existence of such a man proves the estimation in 
: Vol. XXII. No. 1499. 
M E. The Republic. 261 
which science was held, and the zeal with which it was cul¬ 
tivated. Lucretius has pronounced the panegyric of Empe¬ 
docles of Agrigentum. Epicharnms, the founder of the 
regular drama in Sicily, supplied Plautus with models which 
he thought worthy of imitation; while the pastoral poetry 
of Theocritus remains to attest the progress which had been 
made in that species of writing. So great, indeed, was the 
estimation in which learning was held, that even the great 
Dionysius was a patron and a competitor in the paths of 
literature. 
The vivifying influence of the conquest of Greece on the 
Roman literature, was strikingly manifested in the almost 
immediate change which took place in the language. Let 
the following passage, the longest we possess in connection, 
and forming part of a hymn to Diana, recited by the chorus 
in the tragedy of Ino (one of the plays of Livius Androni- 
cus), be compared with the latest of the inscriptional frag¬ 
ments we have submitted to the reader; and let it be also 
remembered, that between the conquest of Magna Graecia, 
of which Livius was a native, and the representation of the 
drama of which it formed a portion, less than forty years 
intervened. 
“ Et jam purpureo suras include cothurno, 
Baltheus et revocet volucres in pectore sinus; 
Pressaque jam graveda crepitent tibi terga pharetra; 
Dirlge odorisequos ad caeca cubilia canes.” 
Absolutely considered, the merit of these lines is not great; 
compared with the carmina incondite of the previous age, 
it is perfectly prodigious, and indicative of a rapidity of 
improvement without parallel in the history of language. 
Naevius, a native of Campania, succeeded Livius, whom 
he closely imitated in his tragedies; but he was less cele¬ 
brated for his tragic than his comic productions, which must 
have possessed considerable originality, as they appear to 
have lashed, with unsparing severity, the vices and tollies of 
the great men of Rome. Judging frbm the scanty fragments 
of his plays which have reached our time, it does not 
appear that he, in any degree, surpassed his predecessor in 
poetical talent, or in the art of versification. It was reserved 
for Ennius, whom the Latin writers have therefore, by 
common consent, pronounced the Father of Roman Song, 
to exhibit a higher degree of the former, and a vast im¬ 
provement in the latter. This illustrious person was a native 
of Magna Gracia, being born at Rudiae, near Tarentum, 
in the year of Rome 515, that is a year after the represen¬ 
tation of the first piece of Livius Andronicus. Like iEschy- 
lus, the great father of the Grecian stage, he was a soldier 
before he became an author. We are informed, by Silius 
Italicus, that he served as a centurion in the Calabrian 
levies, which, in the year 538, accompanied Titus Manlius 
to the war waged in Sardinia against the abettors of the 
Carthaginian cause, Here he became acquainted with Cato, 
the Censor, whom he is said to have instructed in Greek, 
and by whem he was brought to Rome, in the year 550, 
where he found employment and means of subsistence, in 
teaching the young patricians the glorious language of his 
native country, and contributed greatly to diffuse among 
the upper classes, a taste for literature. Hence, without 
entering into any minute criticism, it must be evident to all 
who are conversant with the history of Roman literature, 
that in the hands of Ennius, the language began to assume- 
its destinctive and peculiar character; that he was the first 
who developed the power and harmony of the noble hexa¬ 
meter, or heroic line, so happily adapted to the genius of 
the language; and that, though in general, little more than 
a mere translator or imitator, he had the art and skill to 
infuse into his translations and imitations, much of the 
native force and spirit of the great originals from uffom he 
borrowed. 
That well known period in the history of literature called 
the Augustan age, may be said to extend from the death of 
Sylla to that of Augustus. In the articles Poetry and Ora¬ 
tory, we have already given such full accounts of the 
3 X author* 
