LUCIUS

See also:

• ACCIUS
• LUCIUS ACCIUS

ACCIUS  , Roman tragic poet, the son of a freedman, was born at Pisaurum in Umbria, in 170 B.C . The year of his death is unknown, but he must have lived to a great age, since Cicero (Brutus, 28) speaks of having conversed with him on literary matters . He was a prolific writer and enjoyed a very high reputation (Horace, Epistles, ii . 1, 56; Cicero, Pro Plancio, 24) . The titles and considerable fragments (about 700 lines) of some fifty plays have been preserved . Most of these were free translations from the Greek, his favourite subjects being the legends of the Trojan war and the house of Pelops . The national history, however, furnished the theme of the Brutus and Decius, —the expulsion of the Tarquins and the self-sacrifice of Publius Decius Mus the younger . The fragments are written in vigorous language and show a lively power of description . Accius. wrote other works of a literary character: Didascalicon and Pragmaticon libri, treatises in verse on the history of Greek and Roman poetry, and dramatic art in particular; Parerga and Praxidica (perhaps identical) on agriculture; and an Annales . He also introduced innovations in orthography and grammar . See Boissier, Le Poete Accius, 1856; L . Muller, De Accii fabulis Disputatio (189o) ; Ribbeck, Geschichte der romischen Dichtung (1892) ; editions of the tragic fragments by Ribbeck (1897), of the others by Bahrens (1886); Plessis, Poesie latine (1909) .