freedman, and originally a Syrian
slave, both of whom were contemporaries of Julius Caesar. At Caesar's
triumphal games in October, B.C. 45, P. Syrus challenged all his craft
to a trial of wit in extemporaneous farce, and Caesar offered Laberius
500,000 sesterces to appear on the stage. Laberius was 60 years old, and
the profession of a mimus was infamous, but the wish of the Dictator was
equivalent to a command, and he reluctantly complied. He had, however,
revenge in his power, and took it. His prologue awakened compassion, and
perhaps indignation; and during the performance he adroitly availed
himself of his various characters to point his wit at Caesar. In the
person of a beaten Syrian slave he cried out, "Marry! Quirites, but we
lose our freedom," and all eyes were turned upon the Dictator; and in
another mime he uttered the pregnant maxim, "Needs must he fear who
makes all else adread." Caesar, impartially or vindictively, awarded the
prize to Syrus.

The _Fescennine Songs_ were the origin of the _Satire_, the only
important species of literature not derived from the Greeks, and
altogether peculiar to Italy. These Fescennine Songs were rude
dialogues, in which the country people assailed and ridiculed one
another in extempore verses, and which were introduced as an amusement
in various festivals. They were formed into the _Satire_[75] by C.
LUCILIUS, who wrote in hexameter verse, and attacked the follies and
vices both of distinguished persons and of mankind in general. He was
born B.C. 148, at Suessa Aurunca, and died at Naples in B.C. 103. He
lived upon terms of intimacy with the younger Scipio and Laelius, and was
the maternal ancestor of Pompey the Great. Lucilius continued to be
admired in the Augustan age; and Horace, while he censures the harsh
versification and the slovenly haste with which Lucilius threw off his
compositions, acknowledges with admiration the fierceness and boldness
of his attacks upon the vices and follies of his contemporaries.

Between Lucilius and the poets of the Augustan age lived Lucretius and
Catullus, two of the greatest--perhaps the greatest--of all the Roman
poets.

T. LUCRETIUS CARUS was born B.C. 95, and died about B.C. 51. He is said
to have been driven mad by a love-potion, and to have perished by his
own hand. The work which has immortalized his name is a philosophical
didactic poem, in heroic hexameters, entitled _De Rerum Natura_, divided
into six books, and addressed