36.  Respecting Titinius there is an utter want of literary information; except that, to judge from a fragment of Varro, he seems to have been older than Terence (558-595, Ritschl, Parerg. i. 194) for more indeed, cannot he inferred from that passage, and though, of the two groups there compared the second (Trabea, Atilius, Caecilius) is on the whole older than the first (Titinius, Terentius, Atta), it does not exactly follow that the oldest of the junior group is to be deemed younger than the youngest of the elder.

37.  II.  VII.  First Steps toward the Latinizing of Italy

38.  Of the fifteen comedies of Titinius, with which we are acquainted, six are named after male characters (-baratus-? -coecus-, -fullones-, -Hortensius-, -Quintus-, -varus-), and nine after female (-Gemina-, -iurisperita-, -prilia-? -privigna-, -psaltria- or -Ferentinatis-, -Setina-, -tibicina-, -Veliterna-, -Ulubrana?), two of which, the -iurisperita- and the -tibicina-, are evidently parodies of men’s occupations.  The feminine world preponderates also in the fragments.

39.  III.  XIV.  Livius Andronicus

40.  III.  XIV.  Audience

41.  We subjoin, for comparison, the opening lines of the -Medea- in the original of Euripides and in the version of Ennius:—­

—­Eith’ ophel’ ’Apgous me diaptasthai skaphos
Kolchon es aian kuaneas sumplegadas
Med’ en napaisi Pelion pesein pote
Tmetheisa peuke, med’ epetmosai cheras
Andron arioton, oi to pagchruson deros
Pelia metelthon ou gar an despoin
Medeia purgous ges epleus Iolkias
‘Eroti thumon ekplageis’ ’Iasonos.—­

-Utinam ne in nemore Pelio securibus
Caesa accidisset abiegna ad terram trabes,
Neve inde navis inchoandae exordium
Coepisset, quae nunc nominatur nomine
Argo, quia Argivi in ea dilecti viri
Vecti petebant pellem inauratam arietis
Colchis, imperio regis Peliae, per dolum. 
Nam nunquam era errans mea domo efferret pedem
Medea, animo aegra, amort saevo saucia.-

The variations of the translation from the original are instructive —­not only its tautologies and periphrases, but also the omission or explanation of the less familiar mythological names, e. g. the Symplegades, the Iolcian land, the Argo.  But the instances in which Ennius has really misunderstood the original are rare.

42.  III.  XI.  Roman Franchise More Difficult of Acquisition

43.  Beyond doubt the ancients were right in recognizing a sketch of the poet’s own character in the passage in the seventh book of the Annals, where the consul calls to his side the confidant,