An Overview of Latin Literature

• Latin literature encompasses essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings in Latin.
• Formal Latin literature began in 240 BC with the first Latin stage play in Rome.
• Latin literature flourished for six centuries.
• The classical era of Latin literature includes Early Latin literature, The Golden Age, The Imperial Period, and Late Antiquity.
• Latin was the language of ancient Romans and a lingua franca in Western and Central Europe during the Middle Ages.
• Prominent Roman authors include Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, and Horace.
• European writers after the Roman Empire also wrote in Latin, including religious figures like Aquinas (1225–1274) and secular figures like Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), and Isaac Newton (1642–1727).

History

• Latin literature developed over centuries, with formal beginnings in 240 BC with regular comedy and tragedy performances in Rome.
• This started one year after the end of the First Punic War.
• Early comedies and tragedies were adaptations of Greek drama.
• Livius Andronicus, a Greek prisoner of war brought to Rome in 272 BC, adapted Greek dramas.
• Andronicus translated Homer's Odyssey into Latin using Saturnian meter.
• In 235 BC, Gnaeus Naevius, a Roman citizen, produced fabula palliata (reworkings of Greek originals).
• Naevius created fabula praetexta, tragedies based on Roman myths and history, starting in 222 BC.
• Later, Naevius composed an epic poem in Saturnian meter about the First Punic War, in which he fought.
• Other epic poets followed Naevius.
• Quintus Ennius wrote an