to which Ennius had been admitted by the elder, and Terence by the younger, Scipio Africanus: and such was his estimation of the verses of this tragedian, that he inscribed them over the entrance to a temple adorned by him with the spoils of enemies whom he had conquered(347). From the high opinion generally entertained of the force and eloquence of his tragedies, Attius was asked why he did not plead causes in the Forum; to which he replied, that he made the characters in his tragedies speak what he chose, but that, in the Forum, his adversaries might say things he did not like, and which he could not answer(348). Horace, in the same line where he celebrates the dramatic skill of Pacuvius, alludes to the loftiness of Attius,— —— “Aufert Pacuvius docti famam senis—Attius alti;” by which is probably meant sublimity both of sentiment and expression. A somewhat similar quality is intended to be expressed in the epithet applied to him by Ovid:— “Ennius arte carens, animosique Attius oris, Casurum nullo tempore nomen habent.” It would appear from Ovid likewise, that he generally chose atrocious subjects for the arguments of his tragedies:— “Nec liber indicium est animi, sed honesta voluptas, Plurima mulcendis auribus apta ferens: Attius esset atrox, conviva Terentius esset, Essent pugnaces qui fera bella canunt(349).” By advice of Pacuvius, Attius adopted such subjects as had already been brought forward on the Athenian stage; and we accordingly find that he has dramatized the well-known stories of Andromache, Philoctetes, Antigone, &c. There are larger fragments extant from these tragedies than from the dramatic works of Ennius or Pacuvius. One of the longest and finest passages is that in the _Medea_, where a shepherd discovering, from the top of a mountain, the vessel which conveyed the Argonauts on their expedition, thus expresses his wonder and admiration at an object he had never before seen:— —— “Tanta moles labitur Fremebunda ex alto, ingenti sonitu et spiritu Præ se undas volvit, vortices vi suscitat, Ruit prolapsa, pelagus respergit, reflat: Ita num interruptum credas nimbum volvier, Num quod sublime ventis expulsum rapi Saxum, aut procellis, vel globosos turbines Existere ictos, undis concursantibus? Num quas terrestres pontus strages conciet; Aut forte Triton fuscinâ evertens specus, Subter radices penitus undanti in freto Molem ex profundo saxeam ad cœlum vomit?” With this early specimen of Latin verse, it may be agreeable to compare a corresponding passage in one of our most ancient English poets. A shepherd, in Spenser’s _Epilogue to the Shepherd’s Calendar_, thus describes his astonishment at the sight of a ship:— “For as we stood there waiting on the strand, Behold a huge great vessel to us came, Dancing upon the waters back to land, As if it scorn’d the danger of the same.