SOURCE: “Cn. Naevius” in A History of Latin Literature, William Collins, Sons, & Company, 1877, pp. 24-5.

In the following excerpt, Schmitz provides a brief summary of Naevius’s life and importance.

I

… Cn. Nævius was a native of Campania, but probably a Latin, though not a Roman citizen, as in this case he could hardly have been treated by his enemies with the severity he had to submit to. He produced his first plays on the Roman stage in b.c. 235. He had served as a soldier in the first Punic war. As a poet he followed, on the whole, the example of Livius Andronicus, but preferred comedy to tragedy; and as a Campanian he seems to have been of a somewhat fiery and independent disposition, and unconcerned as to whom he might offend by the sallies of his wit. He thus drew upon himself the enmity of...