others around him who were intellectually inferior to himself, and the sense of his political inferiority was galling to him. Accordingly he used literature as a new and powerful instrument to foster the jealousy which existed between the orders of the state. He attacked the principle of an aristocracy of birth in the persons of some members of the most distinguished families. He held up Scipio Africanus to ridicule by making him the hero of a tale of scandal. Etiam qui res magnas manu gessit sæpe gloriose, Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solas Præstat, eum suus pater cum pallio una ab amica abduxit. The public services of the two Metelli could not shield them from the poet’s bitterness, which attributed their consulships not to their own merits, but to the mere will of fate.[132] One bitter sentence, “Fato Metelli Romæ fiunt consules.” made that powerful family his enemies. The Metellus, who at that time held the office of consul, threatened him with vengeance for his slander in the following verse:—“Dabunt malum Metelli Nævio poetæ.” and the offending poet was indicted for a libel, in pursuance of a law of the Twelve Tables,[133] and thrown into prison. Whilst there he composed two pieces, in which he expressed contrition; and Plautus[134] describes him as watched by two jailers, pensively resting his head upon his hands:— Nam os columnatum poetæ esse inaudivi barbaro, Quoi bini custodes semper totis horis accubant. Through the influence of the tribunes he was set at liberty.[135] As, however, is frequently the case, he could not resist indulging again in his satiric vein, and he was exiled to Utica, where he died,[136] having employed the last years of his life in writing his epic poem. The following laudatory epitaph was written by himself:— Mortales immortales flere si foret fas, Flerent Divæ Camenæ Nævium poetam. Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro Obliti sunt Romani loquier Latinâ linguâ. If gods might to a mortal pay the tribute of a tear, The Muses would shed one upon the poet Nævius’ bier; For when he was transferred unto the regions of the tomb, The people soon forgot to speak the native tongue of Rome. The best and most admired writers have paid their homage to his excellence. Ennius and Virgil discovered in him such a freshness and power that they unscrupulously copied and imitated him, and transferred his thoughts into their own poems as they did those of Homer. Horace writes that in his day the poems of Nævius were universally read, and were in the hands and hearts of everybody, and Cicero[137] praises him, although he had no taste for the old national literature.