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  Transcriber's Notes:

  * Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
  * The corrigenda et addenda listed on page xvi have been applied
    to the text.
  * Page 167: Original text 'curosity' replaced with 'curiosity'.
  * Page 139: Original text in footnote 'Thon' replaced with 'Thou'.
  * Page 359: Latin 'At, credo' more usually seen as 'An, credo' but
    text in this book not altered.




            *    *    *    *    *


               THE ROMAN POETS

                      OF

                THE REPUBLIC

                   _SELLAR_


                    London

                 HENRY FROWDE

       OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE

               7 PATERNOSTER ROW




                THE ROMAN POETS

                       OF

                 THE REPUBLIC

                       BY

            W. Y. SELLAR, M.A., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

                      AND

    FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD

       _NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED_

                    OXFORD

            AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

                  MDCCCLXXXI

             [_All rights reserved_]




                         TO

              J. C. SHAIRP, M.A. LL.D.,

   PRINCIPAL OF THE UNITED COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS,

  PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

                 IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT

        OF MUCH ACTIVE AND GENEROUS KINDNESS,

                       AND OF

          A LONG AND STEADY FRIENDSHIP,

    THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


In preparing a second edition of this volume, which has been for some
years out of print, I have, with the exception of a few pages added to
Chapter IV, retained the first five chapters substantially unchanged.
Chapters VI and VII, on Roman Comedy, are entirely new. I have enlarged
the account formerly given of Lucilius in Chapter VIII, and modified
the Review of the First Period, contained in Chapter IX. The short
introductory chapter to the Second Period is new. The four chapters on
Lucretius have been carefully revised, and, in part, re-written. The
chapter on Catullus has been re-written and enlarged, and the views
formerly expressed in it have been modified.

In the preface to the first edition I acknowledged the assistance I
had derived from the editions of the Fragments of the early writers by
Klussman, Vahlen, Ribbeck, and Gerlach; from the Histories of Roman
Literature by Bernhardy, Bähr, and Munk, and from the chapters on
Roman Literature in Mommsen's Roman History; from a treatise on the
origin of Roman Poetry, by Corssen; from Sir G. C. Lewis's work on 'The
Credibility of Early Roman History'; from the Articles on the Roman
Poets by the late Professor Ramsay, contained in Smith's 'Dictionary
of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'; and from Articles by Mr.
Munro in the 'Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology.' In addition
to these I have, in the present edition, to acknowledge my indebtedness
to the History of Roman Literature by W. S. Teuffel, to Ribbeck's
'Römische Tragödie,' to Ritschl's 'Opuscula,' to the editions of some
of the Plays of Plautus by Brix and Lorenz, to that of the Fragments
of Lucilius by L. Müller, to the Thesis of M. G. Boissier, entitled
'Quomodo Graecos Poetas Plautus Transtulerit,' to Articles on Lucilius
by Mr. Munro in the 'Journal of Philology,' and to the edition of
Lucretius, and the 'Criticisms and Elucidations of Catullus' by the
same writer, to Schwabe's 'Quaestiones Catullianae,' to Mr. Ellis's
'Commentary on Catullus,' to R. Westphal's 'Catull's Gedichte,' and to
M. A. Couat's 'Étude sur Catulle.' I have more especially