But the Saturnian had six ictuses instead of four, and as Latin verse was more aware of its quantities and less of its word stress than English the ictuses, while somewhat regardful of word accent, were more attentive to quantity. Finally, since alliteration is more effective when the ictus falls on the first syllable, and since the Latin accent had to a large extent shifted away from the first syllable by the time of Naevius, the use of alliteration was somewhat less frequent in Naevius than in _Beowulf_. In Vergil’s day the effect of this verse must have been somewhat like that of Langland’s poems upon the Elizabethans. The shift of the Latin word accent toward the penult was already destroying the effectiveness of the verse even when Naevius wrote; and the break of the line in the center rendered it ineffective for sustained narration. Its halting movement may be somewhat inadequately illustrated by a paraphrase of Naevius’ own epitaph: If death of any mortal sadden hearts immortal, The heavenly Muses surely Naevius’ death bemoan; For after he departed to the shades of Orcus The voice of Rome is silent music is forgotten. Ennius abandoned the line, and it was eventually doomed, just as the Anglo-Saxon meters in England began to disappear when the richer rhythms of French poetry came to be appreciated. It was Naevius also who broke away from Greek subjects in the drama, though with what success we cannot say. He made what we may call a “chronicle play” of the Romulus legend which disregarded the conventional unities, and he also wrote a pageantry play to commemorate the heroic single combat of Marcellus with a Celtic chieftain. He is therefore among the first to stage contemporary drama and to disregard the restrictions of time and place. That he made the same innovations in comedies like his _Hariolus_ is probable but cannot be proved from the few lines that remain.