Transcriber's Notes: * Obvious punctuation errors repaired. * The corrigenda et addenda listed on page xvi have been applied to the text. * Page 167: Original text 'curosity' replaced with 'curiosity'. * Page 139: Original text in footnote 'Thon' replaced with 'Thou'. * Page 359: Latin 'At, credo' more usually seen as 'An, credo' but text in this book not altered. * * * * * THE ROMAN POETS OF THE REPUBLIC _SELLAR_ London HENRY FROWDE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE 7 PATERNOSTER ROW THE ROMAN POETS OF THE REPUBLIC BY W. Y. SELLAR, M.A., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF HUMANITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH AND FORMERLY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD _NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED_ OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS MDCCCLXXXI [_All rights reserved_] TO J. C. SHAIRP, M.A. LL.D., PRINCIPAL OF THE UNITED COLLEGE, ST. ANDREWS, PROFESSOR OF POETRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, IN ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MUCH ACTIVE AND GENEROUS KINDNESS, AND OF A LONG AND STEADY FRIENDSHIP, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. In preparing a second edition of this volume, which has been for some years out of print, I have, with the exception of a few pages added to Chapter IV, retained the first five chapters substantially unchanged. Chapters VI and VII, on Roman Comedy, are entirely new. I have enlarged the account formerly given of Lucilius in Chapter VIII, and modified the Review of the First Period, contained in Chapter IX. The short introductory chapter to the Second Period is new. The four chapters on Lucretius have been carefully revised, and, in part, re-written. The chapter on Catullus has been re-written and enlarged, and the views formerly expressed in it have been modified.