The Romans, like all other nations, had oral poetical compositions before they possessed any written literature. Cicero, in three places,[92] speaks of the banquet being enlivened by the songs of bards, in which the exploits of heroes were recited and celebrated. By these lays national pride and family vanity were gratified, and the anecdotes thus preserved by memory furnished the sources of early legendary history. But these lays and legends must not be compared to those of Greece, which had probably taken an epic form long before they furnished the groundwork of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In Roman tradition there are no traces of elevated genius or poetical inspiration. The religious sentiment was the fertile source of Greek fancy, which gave a supernatural glory to the effusions of the bard, painted men as heroes, and heroes as deities; and, whilst it was the natural growth of the Greek intellect, twined itself round the affections of the whole people. Roman religion was a ceremonial for the priests, not for the people; and its poetry was merely formulæ in verse, and soared no higher than the semi-barbarous ejaculations of the Salian priests or the Arvalian brotherhood. Fabulous legends doubtless formed the groundwork of history, and therefore probably constituted the festive entertainments to which Cicero alludes; but they were rude and simple, and the narratives founded upon them, which are embodied in the pages of Livy and others, are as much improved by the embellishments of the historian, as these in their turn have been expanded by the poetic talent of Macaulay. It is scarcely possible to conceive that the uncouth literature which was contemporary with such rude relics as have come down to modern times should have displayed a higher degree of imaginative power. A few simple descriptive lines, one or two animating and heart-stirring sentiments, and no more, would be tolerated as an interruption to the grosser pleasures of the table amongst a rude and boisterous people. The Romans were men of actions, not of words; their intellect, though vigorous, was essentially of a practical character: it was such as to form warriors, statesmen, jurists, orators, but not poets; in the highest sense of the word, _i. e._ if by poetic talent is meant the creative faculty of the imagination. The Roman mind possessed the germs of those faculties which admit of cultivation and improvement, such as taste and genius, and the appreciation of the beautiful, and their endowments rendered them capable of attaining literary excellence; it did not possess the natural gifts of fancy and imagination, which were part and parcel of the Greek mind, and which made them in a state of infancy, almost of barbarism, a poetical people.