e old poets, or
among those whom both the present age and posterity will disdainfully
reject? He may fairly be placed among the ancients, who is younger
either by a short month only, or even by a whole year. I take the
advantage of this concession, and pull away by little and little, as [if
they were] the hairs of a horse's tail: and I take away a single one and
then again another single one; till, like a tumbling heap, [my
adversary], who has recourse to annals and estimates excellence by the
year, and admires nothing but what Libitina has made sacred, falls to
the ground.

Ennius the wise, the nervous, and (as our critics say) a second Homer,
seems lightly to regard what becomes of his promises and Pythagorean
dreams. Is not Naevius in people's hands, and sticking almost fresh in
their memory? So sacred is every ancient poem. As often as a debate
arises, whether this poet or the other be preferable; Pacuvius bears
away the character of a learned, Accius, of a lofty writer; Afranius'
gown is said to have fitted Menander; Plautus, to hurry after the
pattern of the Sicilian Epicharmus; Caecilius, to excel in gravity,
Terence in contrivance. These mighty Rome learns by heart, and these she
views crowded in her narrow theater; these she esteems and accounts her
poets from Livy the writer's age down to our time. Sometimes the
populace see right; sometimes they are wrong. If they admire and extol
the ancient poets so as to prefer nothing before, to compare nothing
with them, they err; if they think and allow that they express some
things in an obsolete, most in a stiff, many in a careless manner; they
both think sensibly, and agree with me, and determine with the assent of
Jove himself. Not that I bear an ill-will against Livy's epics, and
would doom them to destruction, which I remember the severe Orbilius
taught me when a boy; but they should seem correct, beautiful, and very
little short of perfect, this I wonder at: among which if by chance a
bright expression shines forth, and if one line or two [happen to be]
somewhat terse and musical, this unreasonably carries off and sells the
whole poem. I am disgusted that any thing should be found fault with,
not because it is a lumpish composition or inelegant, but because it is
modern; and that not a favorable allowance, but honor and rewards are
demanded for the old writers. Should I scruple, whether or not Atta's
drama trod the saffron and flowers in a proper manner, almost a