of together,
and the best critics of antiquity mention them with high commendation
and respect. Of the first, much less is known than of the other two. He
is nowhere, that we know of, spoken of directly, but often collaterally.
He is sometimes coupled with Ennius--the praise of invention is
generally allowed him, and his name is brought forward by Horace rather
for the purpose of marking an aera than of giving an opinion of his
talents.

Ambigitur quoties uter utro fit prior; aufert
Pacuvius docti famam senis, Actius alti:
Dicitur Alfrani toga convenisse Menandro;
Plautus ad exemplar siculi properare Epicharmi,
Vincere Coecilius gravitate, Terentius arte
Hos ediscit, et hos areto stipata theatro
Spectat Roma potens: habet nos numeratque poetas
Ad nostrum tempus, LIVI scriptoris ab aevo.[C]

From which lines it appears that in the time of Horace learning was
considered to be the characteristic feature of Pacuvius and loftiness of
thought that of Accius; and Quintilian speaks of both in the following
terms. "Those splendid writers combined sublimity of conception with
vigorous style in their tragedies; and on the whole if they have not
diffused through their compositions more gracefulness, it was not their
fault, but the fault of the age they lived in."

Unquestionably the first dramatic poets of Rome laboured under great
disadvantages. They had not only to form a drama, but to mould to a
taste for the reception of it a barbarous people, whose softest and most
luxurious enjoyments partook of that ferocity which rendered that race
terrible in the eyes of the world, but to the philosophic mind not
truly great--never, in the slightest measure, amiable or estimable.
Nature, moreover, had been ransacked by the Greek poets, so that nothing
but imitation was left for the Romans, who in letters, science, or arts,
and particularly in the drama, attained no excellence but in proportion
as they copied their Grecian predecessors. Even their copies are allowed
by their own best authors to be wretched productions when compared with
the works of the great originals.[D] Compared with Menander Terence was
frigid and unaffecting, in sublimity even Accius was incomparably
inferior to Eschylus, Pacuvius in philosophic knowledge to Euripides,
and the whole body of the tragic writers of Rome, including Seneca, sink
when put in competition with Sophocles.

A poet of the name of Seneca wrote some tragedies-