Metrical Annals

In recitative poetry metrical annals after the model of those of Ennius seem not to have been wanting; but they were perhaps sufficiently criticised by that graceful vow of his mistress of which Catullus sings—­that the worst of the bad heroic poems should be presented as a sacrifice to holy Venus, if she would only bring back her lover from his vile political poetry to her arms.

Lucretius

Indeed in the whole field of recitative poetry at this epoch the older national-Roman tendency is represented only by a single work of note, which, however, is altogether one of the most important poetical products of Roman literature.  It is the didactic poem of Titus Lucretius Carus (655-699) “Concerning the Nature of Things,” whose author, belonging to the best circles of Roman society, but taking no part in public life whether from weakness of health or from disinclination, died in the prime of manhood shortly before the outbreak of the civil war.  As a poet he attached himself decidedly to Ennius and thereby to the classical Greek literature.  Indignantly he turns away from the “hollow Hellenism” of his time, and professes himself with his whole soul and heart to be the scholar of the “chaste Greeks,” as indeed even the sacred earnestness of Thucydides has found no unworthy echo in one of the best-known sections of this Roman poem.  As Ennius draws his wisdom from Epicharmus and Euhemerus, so Lucretius borrows the form of his representation from Empedocles, “the most glorious treasure of the richly gifted Sicilian isle”; and, as to the matter, gathers “all the golden words together from the rolls of Epicurus,” “who outshines other wise men as the sun obscures the stars.”  Like Ennius, Lucretius disdains the mythological lore with which poetry was overloaded by Alexandrinism, and requires nothing from his reader but a knowledge of the legends generally current.(16) In spite of the modern purism which rejected foreign words from poetry, Lucretius prefers to use, as Ennius had done, a significant Greek word in place of a feeble and obscure Latin one.  The old Roman alliteration, the want of due correspondence between the pauses of the verse and those of the sentence, and generally the older modes of expression and composition, are still frequently found in Lucretius’ rhythms, and although he handles the verse more melodiously than Ennius, his hexameters move not, as those of the modern poetical school, with a lively grace like the rippling brook, but with a stately slowness like the stream of liquid gold.  Philosophically and practically also Lucretius leans throughout on Ennius, the only indigenous poet whom his poem celebrates.  The confession of faith of the singer of Rudiae(17)—­

   -Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum,
   Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus-:—­

describes completely the religious standpoint of Lucretius, and not unjustly for that reason he himself terms his poem as it were the continuation of Ennius:—­