The old story is well known: Roman literature ‘began’ in 240 b.c. when Livius Andronicus adapted a Greek play for performance in Latin at the Ludi Romani.Footnote ¹ The belief in that watershed moment was so ubiquitous in antiquity that it can be easy now to miss the significance of the fact that it was not the orthodoxy until the second half of the first century b.c., when Varro uncovered the details of that ‘first’ moment of literature, and, with Atticus and Cicero, promulgated the story to a wider audience. Their hellenocentric account of Latin literature's beginnings influenced the views that the Romans themselves held and bequeathed to literary historians. What, though, were the contours of the account that their discovery superseded? It is the purpose of this paper to re-examine the pre-Varronian orthodoxy about the precise beginning of Latin literature — indeed, to show that there even was such a thing — and to suggest that, at the end of the second century b.c., there prevailed a different way of thinking about the contexts that prompted that beginning, compared to the opinions held by Varro and his followers.

Traces of the pre-Varronian story survive in Accius’ famously incorrect dates for Livius and in a fragment of Porcius Licinus’ poem on the history of Latin poetry. Current opinions hold that Accius made Livius’ career begin with a dramatic performance in 197 b.c., after he was captured at Tarentum in 209 b.c., and that Porcius marked an epic poem, that of either Ennius or Naevius, as the beginning of Latin poetry. This paper points out difficulties in these views, and proposes a new interpretation of the early histories of Latin poetry. It suggests instead that Accius and Porcius probably marked Livius’ hymn to Juno Regina, composed and performed in 207 b.c. in advance of the Battle of the Metaurus, as the moment when Latin literature began. That claim develops from a sceptical reassessment of the sources for this material. Pushing back against Varro and his followers will reveal the facts that Accius and Porcius expounded, but it will also reveal their own way of thinking about the rôle of poetry, which differed substantially from Varronian views on the same subject. Their account made Roman literature a product of war, and gave to it a central and prominent position in the bellicose society of the Middle Republic. In turn, when Varro and his contemporaries gave pride of place to a play performed in 240 b.c., they were not simply bringing out new facts that were unknown to their predecessors. They were also elevating a different narrative that made Latin literature begin in times of peace, only occupying Roman attentions when they were not engaged in more pressing matters of war.

In the question of the origins of Latin literature, there are several competing perspectives at play: (1) the views of Accius and Porcius, who were apparently unaware of the events of 240 b.c., which views must further be divided between those attributed to them by Varro and his followers through to modern times, and the views that this paper suggests they held; (2) the views of Varro and his followers, which were based on more accurate facts but still gave priority to a hellenocentric account of Latin literature's beginnings; and (3) the modern accounts that play down ancient interpretations that made 240 b.c. so radical a moment in the history of Latin literature. Only the first two perspectives come in for discussion in this paper, since, like Varro and Cicero, the earliest scholars who treated these questions were keen to mark a definitive beginning of literature, apparently having no truck with a pre-literary phase. Since modern narratives differ so much from even the Varronian one,Footnote ² there might seem little to be gained from sifting anew the evidence for some twice-discredited views, apart from a better understanding of the earliest period of Roman literary scholarship. More is at stake, however, in uncovering the earliest histories of poetry, and in appreciating how different they were from the Varronian orthodoxy, since the opinions of Accius and Porcius provide important insights into the ways of thinking about literature, its connection to war, and its position at the centre of élite society that were active in the latter part of the second century b.c.

This paper first examines Accius’ account of the career of Livius, and especially how he will have put that account together. It argues that Cicero's polemic has obscured the truth about Accius’ views, and that the earlier scholar's account was more reasonable than Cicero was willing to admit. It then scrutinizes arguments about Porcius Licinus’ views, suggesting that the current opinions are not as compelling or conclusive as their proponents assert. Although the crucial fragment of Porcius’ poem cannot itself be made to reveal his views, one significant and unnoticed historical point strengthens the case that he gave primacy to Livius’ hymn to Juno. The new interpretation of these early efforts at writing Latin literary history reveals what and how second-century b.c. Romans thought about the beginning of Latin poetry, and, further, how much that way of thinking changed in the first century b.c.

I ACCIUS’ CHRONOLOGY FOR LIVIUS ANDRONICUS

In the early 40s b.c., Varro, Atticus, and Cicero unveiled newly discovered information that redefined the beginning of Latin literature, showing that Livius had presented a play in 240 b.c. That evidence directly contradicted the opinion that had dominated previous scholarship, which held that Livius’ career as a dramatist began only in 197 b.c. The champion of that view was the scholarly-minded tragedian Accius, against whose name history recorded a tremendous error in the reckoning of Livius’ dates. The fullest ancient evidence for Accius’ account comes from Cicero's refutation of it (Brut. 72–3):

According to Cicero, Accius thought that Livius was captured at Tarentum in 209 b.c. and presented a play at Salinator's votive Ludi Iuuentatis in 197 b.c. Modern accounts of Accius’ error follow Cicero, and assume that both of those dates were based upon secure evidence, from which Accius then constructed the rest of his chronology for the poet.Footnote ³

Taking Cicero at his word is not entirely satisfactory. Here I argue that Accius’ chronology for Livius was formed in an entirely different way, proceeding solely from the secure date of the hymn to Juno Regina in 207 b.c., which is conspicuous by its absence in Cicero's report; the dates of 209 and 197 b.c. will have been no more than reasoned guesses. Modern assumptions about the reliability of the dates 209 and 197 b.c. are problematic, since they disregard the kinds of evidence that were available to the students who, in the late second century b.c., turned to the task of writing a history of Latin poetry. One can only understand how Accius worked by recognizing the obstacles that faced serious students who tried to obtain reliable data on the topic. Records were kept by various organizations and in disparate archives under the purview of individuals whose predecessors in office commissioned a poem or performance. No central repository for that information existed, nor did individual archives gather encyclopaedic material about a poet's life. For poems that had been written privately and not on a civic commission the situation was even more difficult, and students like Accius and Porcius Licinus could rely only on rare statements made in the texts of those poems or, if lucky, on records preserved by aristocratic families.Footnote ⁴ A poet's private life was thus not likely to appear in official records, and it would have been very easy to miss important information that rested in one archive or another.

It is extremely probable, therefore, that the only securely dated information about Livius’ career available to Accius would not have involved his arrival at Rome or his connection with individual members of the Livii Salinatores — any detail about his non-professional life, that is — but instead would have recorded information about official commissions. We may also rule out the possibility that Accius consulted private records of the Livii Salinatores, since he almost certainly would have uncovered evidence of Livius’ earlier career if he had. Those initial suspicions gain some support from a closer examination of the dates that Cicero attributes to Accius’ account. Accius could not have found any evidence that Livius was captured at Tarentum in 209 b.c., since, as Varro later learned, he was not.Footnote ⁵ Additional corroboration on this point comes from Cicero himself. When he refuted Accius, he could not simply trump the earlier scholar with the true date of Livius’ arrival. That argument would have been much easier to make. Instead, Cicero had to present a convoluted argument about the date of Livius’ first Roman play in order to refute the idea that he arrived in 209 b.c. The shape of Cicero's argument implies that no one in the early 40s b.c. had found any evidence about the date of Livius’ arrival. It is therefore improbable that Accius had evidence to support the date of 209 b.c., with the result that he will have been making a guess, not reporting the results of a careful investigation.

It seems unlikely, too, that Accius’ account was based upon any firm evidence that Livius staged a play in connection with the Ludi Iuuentatis, and less likely still that he had his Roman debut at that festival. Competing dates for that festival — Accius put it in 197 b.c., Valerius Antias in 191 b.c., and many thought that 194 b.c. was a significant year — show that no incontrovertible evidence, either for the date of the Ludi Iuuentatis or for the first performance of a play of Livius at that festival, was known to scholars at the end of the second century b.c.Footnote ⁶ That contemporary disagreement casts doubt on the idea that Accius had reliable evidence on this point. The dates of 209 and 197 b.c. do not seem to represent the strongest elements, supported by documentary evidence, in the chronology for Livius. Instead, they were perhaps its weakest points.

By contrast, there is a date in Livius’ career — that of the hymn to Juno Regina in 207 b.c. — that goes unmentioned by Cicero but was supported by reliable records that Accius could have found, in all likelihood, in several repositories.Footnote ⁷ Here it will be useful to rehearse the story of this hymn as well as the evidence that supports its dating. In the fullest extant narrative about it, Livy makes it an official response to a series of prodigies. When expiations of those prodigies failed, the pontifices ordered a ritual purification in which twenty-seven maidens, processing through the city, would sing a hymn. While the chorus was rehearsing in the temple of Jupiter Stator, lightning struck the temple of Juno Regina on the Aventine; a sacrifice to that goddess was hastily arranged, which was accompanied by the procession of maidens who sang the hymn.Footnote ⁸

Nothing of this hymn has survived,Footnote ⁹ and for that reason it is impossible to know anything about its metre or style.Footnote ¹⁰ Livy has nothing favourable to say about it, but his assessment is not a reliable guide to the tastes of its first audiences. Livy's condemnation, and the fact that the hymn has left mere traces of itself in the history of Roman literature, should not be taken to indicate that it was unimportant, either in contemporary eyes or to the ancient development of a narrative about the history of Latin poetry. In its own time, the hymn and its performance were a tremendous success.Footnote ¹¹ When similar prodigia and monstra were reported in 200 b.c., the city was purified again with a procession of twenty-seven maidens singing a hymn to Juno Regina.Footnote ¹² But the hymn was significant in other respects, too, for the placation of the gods could be presented as a reason behind the Roman victory at the Metaurus; at a time when victory had seemed beyond reach, the Romans nevertheless defeated Hasdrubal and Hannibal in a battle that proved to be a major turning point in the war.

More significant for the history of Latin poetry, and for the study in antiquity of that subject, is the fact that Livius’ hymn led to official recognition of an association of scribae and histriones, according to material preserved by Festus (p. 446.26–448.4 Lindsay):

Festus’ definition and discussion of scribae links Livius’ hymn, and the changing circumstances of the Roman state that followed its performance, with a special privilege accorded to the literary guild. After the performance of the hymn and after, it would seem, the victory at the Metaurus, in return for the poet's contribution of the hymn, the guild was granted the right to convene meetings and dedicate offerings in the Aventine temple of Minerva. Such an early and distinguished recognition of men of literary taste would undoubtedly have loomed large in the minds of the students who, decades later, set about writing a history of Latin poetry.Footnote ¹⁴ The evidence for these events admittedly only emerges in the Augustan period, in Livy and in a successor of Verrius Flaccus, although Verrius seems to have taken the material for this definition from an official decree granting those privileges, which could reasonably be expected to belong to the third century b.c.Footnote ¹⁵ Some evidence suggests that Ennius also could have marked these events as a major turning point in Roman history, which would provide an early witness to this belief.Footnote ¹⁶ It therefore poses no difficulty to make Accius consider Livius’ hymn a crucial moment in the history of Latin poetry.

The surviving traces of Accius’ chronology and the questions his research on the origins of Latin poetry can reasonably be expected to have answered, based on the kinds of evidence available in the late second century b.c., suggest that the only documented information on which he could have relied was the official commission of the hymn to Juno Regina. On that conclusion, it will be better to take Accius’ belief that Livius arrived in Rome in 209 b.c. as a guess based on uncorroborated stories of the poet's Tarentine origins and on clear evidence that he was in Rome by 207 b.c. Likewise, the detail that Livius presented a play in 197 b.c. at the Ludi Iuuentatis need not represent anything more than a guess based on the belief that he had presented a play at a festival sponsored by the Livii Salinatores, with the late date guided by the belief that he only arrived in Rome in 209 b.c. Understanding this process does not change the fact that Accius’ dates for the poet were too late, but it does allow us to see how he reached those conclusions. Accius had just one secure date, that of the hymn to Juno. To flesh out his account, he guessed about the chain of events that brought the poet to Rome from Tarentum and about the date of his first play. Those inferences were perhaps reasonable, but ultimately too conservative. Accius put the wartime hymn to Juno at the beginning of Livius’ career. Little did he know that, as Varro, Atticus, and Cicero would later discover to their amazement, the hymn in fact belonged to the end of Livius’ career.

Here we may return to some unexplained difficulties in Cicero's otherwise definitiveFootnote ¹⁷ refutation of Accius, which may well lend support to this explanation of Accius’ error. In his commentary on the Brutus, Douglas identified these problems fully: we do not know why Cicero put forward inconclusive arguments based on the ages of individual poets, nor do we know how much of his refutation Accius would himself have agreed with, particularly on the points about the priority of Livius.Footnote ¹⁸ Despite modern claims that Accius put the careers of Naevius and Plautus earlier than that of Livius, there is in fact no evidence that Accius did not consider Livius the originator of Latin poetry, and very good reasons for thinking that he had the relative order of early poets correct, even if his dates for them were a generation too low.Footnote ¹⁹ If we resist Cicero's unsupported and jumbled refutation, there is every reason to think that Accius thought that the beginning of Livius’ career was also the beginning of Latin poetry.

Most significant for understanding Accius’ view about the beginning of Livius’ career is Douglas's observation that Cicero's account is imprecise in its reckoning. Cicero says that Accius thought that the performance at the Ludi Iuuentatis occurred eleven years after (‘annis post xi’) Livius had been captured at Tarentum. No matter how one counts, ‘eleven years’ cannot describe the period from 209 to 197 b.c. Nor, as Douglas observed, can that interval mark the period from the ‘proelium Senense’ in 207 b.c. (mentioned in the subsequent relative clause) to the performance of 197 b.c. without introducing terrible confusion into Cicero's Latin.Footnote ²⁰ Furthermore, Accius had no reason to point out that the performance occurred, on inclusive reckoning, eleven years after that battle, and there is even less justification for thinking that Cicero would have preserved so trivial a detail. Neither Cicero nor Accius was concerned in this instance with the long intervals that sometimes separated such a vow from its fulfilment.

A different point therefore should be lurking behind ‘annis post xi’. Here it must be held in mind that Cicero's goal was not to offer a fair exposition of Accius’ account.Footnote ²¹ He was instead joining Varro and Atticus in refuting definitively the opinions that had dominated scholarship for nearly a century. Cicero would seem to have directed his attack against the very weakest parts of Accius’ chronology, namely where Accius was only making inferences. That explanation of Cicero's method also justifies the shape of his argument. In roundabout fashion but with no great difficulty, Cicero could cast grave doubts on the weakly supported dates of 209 and 197 b.c., both of which were contravened by the fact that Livius presented his first play in Rome in 240 b.c.; to make Accius’ argument seem even more illogical, Cicero omitted the one secure date in the whole account. Coherence would be restored to ‘annis post xi’ if it describes the interval between Livius’ hymn to Juno and his play at the Ludi Iuuentatis. What remains unexplained, though, is why Cicero allowed ‘annis post xi’ to stand in his own text; considerable laxity is evident in the reckoning of years throughout this passage, however, and it is quite possible that Cicero was simply unconcerned with precision.Footnote ²²

On the interpretation here proposed, Accius dated the beginning of Livius’ poetic career and of Latin literature to 207 b.c. rather than to 197 b.c., and during the Second Punic War, not after it. His erroneous account was not based on documentary evidence for a play in 197 b.c. or for Livius’ arrival in 209 b.c., reliable evidence for which seems never to have existed. Instead, Accius will have expanded his account of Livius’ career with some guesses, proceeding from the secure evidence for the hymn. The opinion of one of the pre-eminent scholars of the day could well have influenced what his contemporaries thought, and what narratives they told about the history of Latin poetry. There is therefore good reason to reconsider what history of Latin poetry Porcius Licinus told and, ultimately, whether his story agrees with that of Accius.

II PORCIUS’ MUSE IN GELLIUS’ HISTORY

At some time probably in the late second century b.c.,Footnote ²³ Porcius Licinus wrote a poem in trochaic septenarii on the history of Latin poetry, extant fragments of which mention Ennius, Terence, and the tragedian Atilius. The fragments embrace topics of content, style, and historical contexts, suggesting that the poem offered a fairly comprehensive survey of Latin verse.Footnote ²⁴ As with all literary histories written about a living tradition, Porcius’ poem was outpaced by new poetry and, as it happened, by new research, which would together greatly limit its utility and hasten its demise.Footnote ²⁵ The greatest attention and the fiercest debates about this poem have centred on a fragment, preserved by Gellius, that dates the arrival of the Muse in Rome to the time of the Second Punic War (Porcius fr. 1 Courtney = Gell., Noct. 17.21.44):

Two principal questions affect the interpretation of this fragment. The first is whether the adjective bellicosam modified se, the Muse, or instead modified Romuli gentem feram; Skutsch's arguments on this point have persuaded most that Porcius had in mind a Musa bellicosa, which is reflected in the translation just given.Footnote ²⁶ What ideas about literature a Musa bellicosa would have implied to Porcius’ audience is best left unexplained for the moment.Footnote ²⁷

The second question is more complicated. Gellius does not explain precisely what Porcius meant when he wrote of the Muse's arrival in the Second Punic War. Two opinions are current,Footnote ²⁸ both of which assume that Porcius had in mind an epic poem.Footnote ²⁹ One school of thought holds that, on the basis of chronology and on the logic of Gellius’ chapter, Porcius can only have been thinking of Naevius and his Bellum Poenicum.Footnote ³⁰ The other view discounts the specificity of Porcius’ ‘Poenico bello secundo’, so that the poems of Naevius and Ennius would both be possible candidates; Ennius’ professed connection to the Muses is considered the decisive factor.Footnote ³¹ It will be necessary to re-examine these arguments in detail because they are so deep-rooted and because, ultimately, they seem to be based upon mistaken assumptions. In the present section I scrutinize the argument that the Gellian context of this fragment requires that it refer to Naevius; I turn in Section iii to the argument about the identity of the Musa bellicosa and, in Section iv, to Ennius’ claim on the Muses. A negative conclusion is reached in each instance: nothing in the fragment, its language, or the context in which it is preserved can reveal what Porcius meant. Sceptically re-examining this material does, however, reveal important differences in the way that scholars in the second century b.c. thought about Latin poetry, which will provide a different way forward in recovering Porcius’ views.

The argument that Porcius could only have been thinking of Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum leans heavily on the fragment's Gellian context. This approach is right in principle: we can scarcely hope to understand the significance of the fragment if we do not understand why it was quoted.Footnote ³² Although in its details this argument seems to miss the mark, it is nonetheless worth our attention for the negative conclusion we can draw from it, namely that Gellius’ chapter gives no reason to restrict the range of poems to which Porcius could have referred.

Gellius’ chapter (Noct. 17.21) sets forth a chronology of important Greeks and Romans and their accomplishments, from the founding of Rome down to the Second Punic War. He adduces the historical highlights of more than five centuries, relying heavily on Cornelius Nepos’ Chronica and on Varro for the details.Footnote ³³ Near the end of the chapter, Gellius focuses more intently on Latin literary history (Noct. 17.21.42–7):

Although details and synchronisms are thick, Gellius offers only about five main points relevant to the immediate argument about Porcius’ history of Latin poetry. Those points are that:

1. (1) Livius began to present plays in 240 b.c.;

2. (2) Ennius was born in 239 b.c.;

3. (3) Naevius presented plays in 235 b.c.;

4. (4) about fifteen years later the second war against Carthage began;

5. (5) not long thereafter Cato and Plautus became famous.

The first book of Varro's De poetis is cited twice (Noct. 17.21.43 and 17.21.45), in connection with the dates of Ennius’ birth and of Naevius’ first plays. Gellius’ chapter and other evidence about Varro's views therefore suggest that the De poetis gave at least Livius’ premiere in 240 b.c. and Naevius’ in 235 b.c. as early fixed points in Latin literature.

What is immediately relevant to Porcius’ fragment is understanding why it is quoted at this point in Gellius’ history of Latin literature. Courtney has argued that the point about Naevius’ military service and the quotation of Porcius in Noct. 17.21.45 are, together, akin to a ‘modern footnote’ to the chronology of Naevius (or, to the third point in the list above).Footnote ³⁴ On that interpretation, Porcius can only have referred to Naevius, and these verses were quoted to show that Porcius dated Naevius’ literary activities several decades too late. This interpretation is not completely satisfactory, not least because Gellius says that Porcius was speaking of the beginning of poetica, not of Naevius’ career. The most significant obstacle to it is that, if Porcius was thinking of Naevius’ plays (or if Gellius or Varro interpreted his words in that way), the claim to date the origins of Latin poetry to the Second Punic War would still be open to another objection, since Livius’ play in 240 b.c. came five years before Naevius’ debut. It would be irrelevant that Porcius put Naevius’ debut too late, since Naevius had, on this view, nothing to do with the exact beginning of Latin literature. Gellius and Varro both knew that, and it seems rather unlikely that either would have quoted Porcius’ verses as a competing perspective if they thought that the verses dealt with Naevius’ chronology alone.

That difficulty falls away, however, if one makes Gellius or Varro quote Porcius simply as a representative of the view that dominated pre-Varronian literary scholarship, which was unaware of the ‘debut’ of Roman drama just after the First Punic War and instead put the beginning of Latin literature a generation later. On this interpretation, the detail about Naevius’ military service indeed corroborates that poet's own dates, but the quotation of Porcius acts as a footnote to the early chronology of Livius Andronicus and Naevius together (or, to the first and third points listed aboveFootnote ³⁵). This view would make the poetic chronology from ‘primus omnium L. Livius’ (Noct. 17.21.42) down to Naevius’ plays derive from a discussion in Varro's De poetis that marked the plays of Livius and Naevius as the beginning of Latin literature; Varro or Gellius dutifully noted Porcius’ low chronology, even though it had been definitively refuted.

The present argument does not exclude the possibility that Naevius’ epic was the poem that the Musa bellicosa inspired, but it does dismiss the claim that Naevius’ poem is the only possible candidate. Porcius’ verses would have been quoted as evidence for early views that made literature begin at Rome a generation too late, so that Varro or Gellius was making a general point about changing interpretations of literary history. The Bellum Poenicum could well have marked the origin of Latin literature for Porcius, but other poems written in the course of the Second Punic War are equally plausible candidates.Footnote ³⁶ As we shall see, there is nothing internal to the fragment that will narrow the field.

III THE MUSA BELLICOSA

Both opinions that dominate scholarship on Porcius hold that the poet's Musa bellicosa can only have meant the inspiration that attended epic poetry, and therefore that either Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum or Ennius’ Annales must be the poem to which these verses refer.Footnote ³⁷ This view was resurrected in the twentieth century by Skutsch, who forcefully claimed that there was nothing warlike about the plays of Livius and Naevius, and, therefore, that only an epic poem could have been inspired by the warlike Muse.Footnote ³⁸ In that view, war and literature are mutually opposed; the one could have nothing to do with the other, except in the particular case of epic poetry.

The same opinion about the antithesis of war and literature was popular in antiquity among authors writing after and in full engagement with Varro. It is regularly illustrated with three passages that seem to be connected to Porcius Licinus’ words, and indeed are often taken as direct echoes of Porcius. In a famous passage, Horace makes tragedy come late to Rome, after the Second Punic War, being investigated by the Romans in a restful way after war (Epist. 2.1.156–63):

In his account of the origins of Roman drama, Livy described dramatic performances in the fourth century b.c. as ‘noua res bellicoso populo’ (‘something new to a warlike people’, 7.2.3). In discussing the origins of the study of literature at Rome, Suetonius argued that the Roman people had previously not had time for such matters, owing to their preoccupation with war: ‘grammatica Romae ne in usu quidem olim, nedum in honore ullo erat, rudi scilicet ac bellicosa etiamtum ciuitate necdum magnopere liberalibus disciplinis uacante’ (‘The study of language and literature was once not even known at Rome, much less respected, since the community, being then uncultured and devoted to warfare, did not yet have much free time for liberal learning’,Footnote ³⁹Gramm. 1.1). The attitude of these three passages is that literary activities only arose at Rome when the Romans were free from war and had the leisure to turn their minds to such pursuits. Beyond that shared attitude, the factor that binds these passages together is language, particularly the forms of bellicosus in Livy and Suetonius, that suggests an underlying connection with Porcius’ Muse.Footnote ⁴⁰ That is popular opinion; but it would be strange if these authors — writing after the most influential scholar of the late Republic, whose work we know they consulted — went back to an obscure poem from the earliest days of Roman literary scholarship to trot out a bit of language, when they knew, from Varro, that Latin literature had begun a generation earlier than Porcius thought.Footnote ⁴¹

More problematic for the communis opinio is the point that the view represented by Horace, Livy, and Suetonius in fact disagrees with Porcius’ general perspective. They put war and literary pursuits in opposition; poetry, drama, and the study of literature were novel activities for the warlike Romans. Unlike these authors writing after Varro, Porcius joins war and literature at the hip;Footnote ⁴² the arriving Muse who causes the beginning of poetry at Rome is described by Porcius as bellicosa.Footnote ⁴³ A small but important modification to the widely held view about Horace, Livy, and Suetonius seems in order: the connection with Porcius’ language is just indirect, and the immediate source of these echoes will have been Varro quoting Porcius. Horace probably betrays his source with serus (Epist. 2.1.161), since similar language occurs in a passage where Cicero is emphasizing the recent discovery about Livius’ chronology (Tusc. 1.3):

Important additional evidence for the source behind these passages comes from Gellius himself, in the sentence that introduces the quotation of Porcius’ verses (Noct. 17.21.45): ‘Porcius autem Licinus serius poeticam Romae coepisse dicit in his uersibus’,Footnote ⁴⁴ which closely echoes Horace's serus and Cicero's ‘serius poeticam nos accepimus’ and ‘sero … recepti’.Footnote ⁴⁵ Porcius could not have described his own account of Latin literature as being ‘(too) late’. The conclusion to be drawn from these parallels is that the material goes back to Varro, so that Horace, Livy, Suetonius, Cicero and apparently Gellius owe these echoes not to a full text of Porcius’ poem itself, but to Varro quoting the poem.Footnote ⁴⁶

That point is significant. If these authors only take their material from Varro, it should also be asked whether their interpretative framework also derives from him, and, further, whether there is any reason for thinking that Porcius and Varro shared the same interpretation. Varro and his followers expressed the belief that peace and the beginning of Latin literature went hand in hand. The view is articulated, without any indication that it was controversial, in Gellius’ report of Varro's chronology for Livius from the first book of De Poetis, where the point is made that his first play dated to the peace following the First Punic War (‘pace cum Poenis facta’, Gell., Noct. 17.21.42).Footnote ⁴⁷ On the Varronian view, then, if poetry or poetic inspiration was ‘warlike’, it could be nothing but epic poetry.

But what was the communis opinio before Varro? It frankly seems misguided to assume that the post-Varronian view about the irreconcilability of war and the beginning of Latin literature was also popular before Varro rewrote the history of early Latin literature. Skutsch's claim that there was nothing warlike about the plays of Livius and Naevius is indicative of the post-Varronian attitude. In point of fact, that dismissal was overstated. Even Plautus, at the end of the second prologue of the Cistellaria, makes overt reference to the ongoing war against Carthage.Footnote ⁴⁸ Naevius and every major Republican tragedian after him wrote fabulae praetextae, serious dramas about Rome's legendary past or recent history. For example, Naevius’ Clastidium was very probably concerned with M. Claudius Marcellus’ victory at the same town in 222 b.c., and a fragment of that play refers to the victorious general's return after the battle.Footnote ⁴⁹ This kind of reference to war, or even to plays about war, was what Skutsch had in mind, but it seems still to miss the point that Porcius intended to make.

In views that can be traced in sources deriving ultimately from the second century b.c., Roman literature and scenic performances were thought to be closely connected to war, whether or not their content was. The particularly Roman nexus of war, literature, and religion shines through, for example, in Livy's brief comment about the Ludi Iuuentatis, dated here to 191 b.c., which derives from Valerius Antias: ‘huius quoque dedicandae causa ludi facti, et eo omnia cum maiore religione facta quod nouum cum Antiocho instabat bellum’ (‘Games were also held for the sake of dedicating [the temple of Iuventas], and everything was done with greater religious scruple, since a new war with Antiochus was imminent’, 36.36.7). The close link between war and poetry is also evident in the story about the hymn to Juno of 207 b.c., when Livius was awarded the right to hold meetings of poets on the Aventine, since the state fared well after the performance of his hymn.Footnote ⁵⁰ The general pattern of these pre-Varronian views suggests that it would be a mistake to think that the ‘warlike’ Muse can only have inspired warlike epic content, when drama, literature, and war were so closely linked in the Roman mindset, at least until Varro shifted the paradigm.

It seems, then, that Varro did not simply transcribe the opinions of scholars of the second century b.c., but transformed their stories about the origin of Latin poetry. The narrative that emerged from Varro's pen differed both in its details and in the interpretative stamp he put upon those facts. Varro showed that Latin poetry, specifically drama, debuted at Rome in the aftermath of the First Punic War: in times of peace, therefore, rather than in times of war. The rôle that war had played in fostering the origins of poetry, in the minds of scholars of the second century b.c., was thenceforward diminished. No longer could students of Latin literature repeat the claim that war went hand in hand with the first impulse to create poetry in Latin. Varro transformed that argument, so that poetry and drama were, in his exposition, a striking novelty introduced to a formerly warlike people in the peace after the first war against Carthage.

If we sidestep Varro's compellingly persuasive interpretation of peace and literature and instead read Porcius’ verses through pre-Varronian eyes, it becomes clear that Porcius need not have meant specifically epic poetry when he spoke of a Musa bellicosa. Any poem or poet could have been inspired by a warlike Muse, based on that way of thinking about literature and war. On the interpretations here advanced, there is no need to restrict the range of possible poems to which Porcius could refer to Naevius’ Bellum Poenicum or Ennius’ Annales alone. Poets and scholars in the second century b.c., unimpeded by Varro's influential pairing of peace and literature, could and did take a broader view of the importance of war for the definition and shape of Latin poetry.

IV THE MUSE LANDS

The arguments presented thus far show that neither the context in which the fragment is preserved nor the idea of a Musa bellicosa requires that Porcius was referring to Ennius or Naevius. Two further details in the fragment itself remain to be addressed. The first is Skutsch's claim that, since Porcius speaks specifically of a Musa, he can only have meant Ennius; the second is the question of what is meant by ‘pinnato gradu’. Both will ultimately require the same agnosticism, but it will be best to set out why these details cannot identify Porcius’ referent, and to demonstrate the range of possible candidates they might suggest.

Those who wish to find in Porcius’ Musa a reference to Ennius point to that poet's claim to have been the first disciple of the Muses at Rome.Footnote ⁵¹ Yet Ennius was, of course, not making a dispassionate statement about his own primacy, and the situation is in any case more complicated: Naevius also invoked the Greek Muses, as Mariotti pointed out,Footnote ⁵² and Hinds has shown us that Livius, too, cannot be so neatly sequestered from the inspiration of the Muses.Footnote ⁵³ On this point, Ennius’ retrospective rewriting of his predecessors’ poetics must be resisted. Moreover, since, when Porcius wrote late in the second century b.c., poetry had long been connected at Rome with the Muses, most visibly and concretely in M. Fulvius Nobilior's grand Temple of Hercules Musarum, one cannot hope to use a mere mention of a Musa to sift out which of the earliest poems Porcius may have meant. Porcius and his contemporaries probably would have thought broadly in terms of all poetry being connected with the Muses, owing to the influence of that temple. On these considerations, if Porcius’ use of Musa is pointed and meant to refer to a specific individual inspired by the Greek Muses, it could refer to any of those three poets; the same holds true if Musa is meant simply in a general way, without regard for whether a poet had invoked the Muses or the Camenae.

One final detail within Porcius’ verses remains to be addressed as a possible means of uncovering his account of the beginning of Latin literature. That the Muse arrived ‘on winged step (pinnato gradu)’ is generally taken to refer specifically, but blandly, to the depiction of a winged Muse; one possible piece of evidence, adduced by Courtney, for that image is Pindar, Isth. 1.64.Footnote ⁵⁴ If there is a more specific point to the Muse's wings, though, it is not clear what it is; a few options present themselves but none provides conclusive proof in its favour. First, it is possible that in ‘pinnato gradu’ there lies a specific allusion to a work now lost and therefore obscure to us, and in that instance its point would remain unknown.Footnote ⁵⁵ Readers may wish to find here an echo of the ἔπεα πτερόεντα of epic poetry, and to point Porcius’ views back towards that genre; nothing excludes that possibility. On the other hand, some evidence could be adduced to support the claim that with ‘pinnato gradu’ Porcius was signalling Livius’ hymn. Pindar provides the relevant image, when he speaks of winged song at Isth. 5.62–3:

This point should not be taken to argue that Porcius is engaging with Pindar, but that the image of winged song existed in connection with the category of humnos. A scholarly-minded poet like Porcius could use pinnatus to evoke a hymnic or an epic atmosphere, or simply in connection with the established iconography of the Muses. The detail about the winged step of Porcius’ Muse will not therefore reveal his scholarly argument.

The preceding sections of this paper have argued the negative conclusion that nothing requires that Porcius was referring to Naevius or Ennius or Livius, to the exclusion of the rest. Pointing out that contemporary ideas about poetry made it possible for Porcius’ Musa bellicosa to have inspired a play or a hymn as well as an epic poem, however, does provide a new way forward. The lack of any decisive factors in the text means that the question of which poem and poet Porcius meant must strictly be left unanswered. Two important points, however, lend support to the suggestion that Porcius referred to Livius’ hymn. The first is that, as I have argued, Accius probably identified the hymn as the beginning of Livius’ career and of Latin poetry. The opinion of a leading scholar would have been influential, and making Porcius agree with Accius is therefore an attractive speculation. The second point in favour of Livius’ hymn is a curiously neglected connection between Porcius’ family and the critical wartime events of 207 b.c.

V L. PORCIUS LICINUS IN 207 B.C.

Although careful students of Porcius’ poem have pointed out that the poet must have been related to individuals who left traces of their political careers in the historical record,Footnote ⁵⁷ those connections have not been explored as fully as they could be. It seems not to have been observed that the poet perhaps had a personal reason to mark Livius’ hymn of 207 b.c. as the watershed moment in the history of Roman poetry. One of the praetors for that year was none other than L. Porcius Licinus, who in 210 b.c. had been plebeian aedile, and in 207 b.c. obtained Gallia as his province, where he was stationed with two legions.Footnote ⁵⁸ The mere posting of the praetor to that province would not have been reason enough for the poet to highlight the events of 207 b.c. in his history of Latin poetry, had tradition not given to the third-century Porcius an important rôle in the lead-up to the battle at the Metaurus.

The winter of 208–207 b.c. found the Roman people somewhat on edge. News had arrived from Massilia that Hasdrubal was in Gaul, raising auxiliaries and waiting for spring, when the Alps would become passable.Footnote ⁵⁹ Preparations for the departure of the consuls and their armies were hindered by the appearance of numerous portents, which prompted the purificatory procession at which Livius’ hymn was sung. After the religious rites had been observed and while the consuls were conducting the levy to raise troops, a frantic letter arrived from the praetor L. Porcius Licinus, reporting that Hasdrubal had left his winter camp early and would join his men with a force of eight thousand Ligurians if a Roman army did not prevent them; the praetor would go as far as he thought was safe with a weak army.Footnote ⁶⁰ The consuls departed almost immediately with their armies. Livy next mentions the praetor and his army at the Roman camps near Sena at the Metaurus; the historian's attention is focused on the consular armies and the ways that they outwitted the Carthaginian commanders — and on how best to stop a marauding elephant — but he nevertheless reports that Porcius Licinus pursued and delayed Hasdrubal, seizing mountain passes and harassing the legions; that the praetor's camp was adjacent to the consular camp; and that, in the battle itself, the praetor's army held the centre of the Roman line.Footnote ⁶¹

The alarm sounded by L. Porcius Licinus in 207 b.c. and his rôle at Metaurus could have provided the poet with a personal motivation to emphasize the events, particularly the hymn composed by Livius, leading up to that battle. The fragmentary state of Porcius’ poem does not allow us to know how much explanation he provided about the account he put forward, much less anything about his motives in composing the poem. The connection is therefore a tidy one, but no external evidence supports it; whether the praetor of 207 b.c. played any rôle within his descendant's poem must remain an open question.Footnote ⁶² That the praetor's rôle may have influenced his descendant's conception of the beginning of Latin poetry (or his willingness to go along with Accius’ account of that same moment) is a rather more justifiable assumption.