Though a few fragments of the tragedies of Pacuvius remain, our opinion of his dramatic merits can be formed only at second hand, from the observations of those critics who wrote while his works were yet extant. Cicero, though he blames his style, and characterizes him as a poet _male loquutus_(336), places him on the same level for tragedy as Ennius for epic poetry, or Cæcilius for comedy; and he mentions, in his treatise _De Oratore_, that his verses were by many considered as highly laboured and adorned.—“Omnes apud hunc ornati elaboratique sunt versus.” It was in this laboured polish of versification, and skill in the dramatic conduct of the scene, that the excellence of Pacuvius chiefly consisted; for so the lines of Horace have been usually interpreted, where, speaking of the public opinion entertained concerning the different dramatic writers of Rome, he says,— “Ambigitur quoties uter utro sit prior: aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis, Attius alti.” And the same meaning must be affixed to the passage in Quintilian,—“Virium tamen Attio plus tribuitur; Pacuvium videri doctiorem, qui esse docti adfectant, volunt(337).” Most other Latin critics, though on the whole they seem to prefer Attius, allow Pacuvius to be the more correct writer. The names are still preserved of about 20 tragedies of Pacuvius—_Anchises_, _Antiope_, _Armorum Judicium_, _Atalanta_, _Chryses_, _Dulorestes_, _Hermione_, _Iliona_, _Medus_, _Medea_, _Niptra_, _Orestes et Pylades_, _Paulus_, _Peribœa_, _Tantalus_, _Teucer_, _Thyestes_. Of these the _Antiope_ was one of the most distinguished. It was regarded by Cicero as a great national tragedy, and an honour to the Roman name.—“Quis enim,” says he, “tam inimicus pene nomini Romano est, qui Ennii Medeam, aut Antiopam Pacuvii, spernat, aut rejiciat?” Persius, however, ridicules a passage in this tragedy, where Antiope talks of propping her melancholy heart with misfortunes, by which she means, (I suppose,) that she fortunately had so many griefs all around her heart, that it was well bolstered up, and would not break or bend so easily as it must have done, had it been supported by fewer distresses— “Sunt quos Pacuviusque et verrucosa moretur Antiope, ærumnis cor luctificabile fulta.”