Accius, Porcius Licinus, and the Beginning of Latin Literature

AbstractThis paper re-examines the scholarly views about the beginning of Latin poetry that were current in the late second centuryb.c., and proposes that the earliest scholars, specifically Accius and Porcius Licinus, marked Livius Andronicus’ hymn to Juno Regina of 207b.c., rather than a play in 197b.c., as the fountainhead of Latin literature. Those histories would suggest that the dominant interpretation put poetry at the heart of the affairs of the state at war; when in the early 40sb.c. Varro and his contemporaries disproved Accius, they were both bringing out new facts about Livius’ earlier career, and rewriting the history of Latin poetry, so that it had its origins in peace, rather than in war.