Two of his tragedies, the Clytemnestra and the Trojan Horse, were acted in the second consulship of Pompey the Great, at the inauguration of the splendid stone theatre[121] which he built. No expense was spared in putting them upon the stage, for Cicero writes, in a letter to M. Marius,[122] that three thousand bucklers, the spoils of foreign nations, were exhibited in the latter, and a procession of six hundred mules, probably richly caparisoned, were introduced in the former, whilst cavalry and infantry, clad in various armour, mingled in mimic combat on the scene. He considers, however, that this splendour was an offence against good taste, and that the enjoyment was spoilt by the gorgeousness of the spectacle. The taste of his patrons, the Roman people, as well as the testimony of antiquity, render it highly probable that he was the author of comedies[123] as well as tragedies. Festus speaks of one, of which he quotes a single line, for the sake of its philological value. CN. NÆVIUS. Nævius was the first poet who really deserves the name of Roman. His countrymen in all ages, as well as his contemporaries, looked upon him as one of themselves. The probability is, that he was not actually born at Rome, though even this has been maintained with some show of plausibility.[124] He was, at any rate, by birth entitled to the municipal franchise, and from his earliest boyhood was a resident in the capital. Nor was he a mere servile imitator, but applied Greek taste and cultivation to the development of Roman sentiments. A true Roman in heart and spirit in his fearless attachment to liberty; his stern opposition to all who dared invade the rights of his fellow-citizens; he was unsparing in his censure of immorality, and his admiration for heroic self-devotion. He was a soldier, and imbibed the free and martial enthusiasm which breathes in his poems when he fought the battles of his country in the first Punic War. His honest principles cemented, in his later years, a strong friendship between him and the upright and unbending Cato,[125]—a friendship which probably contributed to form the political and literary character of that stern old Roman. It is generally assumed that Nævius was a Campanian; but the only reason for this assumption is, that A. Gellius[126] criticises his epitaph, of which Nævius himself was the author, as full of Campanian pride.