Such rude lines, originally sung or recited in the Tuscan and Latian villages, at nuptials or religious festivals, were first introduced at Rome by _Histrions_, who, as already mentioned, were summoned from Etruria, in order to allay the pestilence which was depopulating the city. These Histrions being mounted on a stage, like our mountebanks, performed a sort of _ballet_, by dancing and gesticulating to the sound of musical instruments. The Roman youth thus learned to imitate their gestures and music, which they accompanied with railing verses delivered in extemporary dialogue.
The jeering, however, which had been at first confined to inoffensive raillery, at length exceeded the bounds of moderation, and the peace of private families was invaded by the unrestrained license of personal invective:—
“Libertasque recurrentes accepta per annos Lusit amabiliter, donec jam sævus apertam In rabiem cœpit verti jocus; et per honestas Ire domos impune minax; doluere cruento Dente lacessiti; fuit intactis quoque cura Conditione super communi(396).” ——
This exposure of private individuals, which alarmed even those who had been spared, was restrained by a salutary law of the Decemvirs.—“Si quis occentassit malum carmen, sive condidisit, quod infamiam faxit flagitiumve alteri, fuste ferito.”
Ennius, perceiving how much the Romans had been delighted with the rude satires poured forth in extemporary dialogue, thought it might be worth his pains to compose satires not to be recited but read. He preserved in them, however, the groundwork of the ancient pleasantry, and the venom of the ancient raillery, on individuals, as well as on general vices. His satires related to various subjects, and were written in different sorts of verses—hexameters being mingled with iambic and trochaic lines, as fancy dictated.
The satires of Ennius, which have already been more particularly mentioned, were imitated by Pacuvius, and from his time the word _satire_ came to be applied at Rome only to poems containing either a playful or indignant censure on manners. This sort of composition was chiefly indebted for its improvement to
A Roman knight, who was born in the year 605, at Suessa, a town in the Auruncian territory. He was descended of a good family, and was the maternal granduncle of Pompey the Great. In early youth he served at the siege of Numantia, in the same camp with Marius and Jugurtha, under the younger Scipio Africanus(397), whose friendship and protection he had the good fortune to acquire. On his return to Rome from his Spanish campaign, he dwelt in a house which had been built at the public expense, and had been inhabited by Seleucus Philopater, Prince of Syria, whilst he resided in his youth as an hostage at Rome(398). Lucilius continued to live on terms of the closest intimacy with the brave Scipio and wise Lælius,