Origins of Latin Literature: Key Authors and Works

The Genesis of Latin Literature

The birth of Latin literature is usually placed at 240 BC. During the Roman games that year, the judges ordered Livio Andronico (the first author of Latin literature, who translated the Odyssey into Latin Saturnian verse) to translate or adapt a Greek comedy and tragedy to present them to the public as part of the games. Thus, the works of Roman literature and drama were initially translations or adaptations of Greek plays.

Early Latin Literary Works

The first known literary works include those of Nevio, who wrote Punic War in Saturnian verse. This work is closely related to the period of nationalist fervor in Rome during that century.

Development of Latin Epic Poetry

The discovery of Greek literature and mythology was instrumental in the development of Latin epic poetry. After a period of translation and imitation in the second century BC, Roman poets began to assimilate the characteristics of the Greek epic. They abandoned traditional Latin verse (Saturnian verse) and adopted the dactylic hexameter, typical of the Greek epic from Homer. The Roman poet who first used this meter was Ennio in his historical epic, Annales.

Of the two possible trends in the epic genre—the mythical national epic (conceived as the exaltation of a story) and the historical epic—the Romans were inclined towards the latter. Virgil was the first to successfully harmonize these two models.

Key Latin Authors and Their Works

Ovid

Ovid cultivated all poetic genres with equal ease. His most important work is:

• Metamorphosis: Following a tradition in Hellenistic and Roman poetry, this long poem, divided into fifteen books, presents a selection of myths involving some kind of transformation. Two hundred and fifty stories are united by a common thread.

Lucano

His most important work is Pharsalia, a long poem about the civil war between Caesar and Pompey. The poem takes its name from the Greek city where the decisive battle of this war took place. The poem celebrates the figure of Pompey and criticizes Caesar, whose actions led to the end of Roman freedoms.

This work is the best representation of the Roman historicist epic in its purest form, as the gods do not appear in it at all.