Lucius Accius - Literary Works

Literary Works

He was a prolific writer and enjoyed a very high reputation. The titles and considerable fragments (about 700 lines) of some fifty plays have been preserved. Judging from the titles and fragments, scholars have surmised that most, if not all, of these poems were tragic in nature (although Pliny the Younger does rank him among the erotic poets).

Most of his poetical works were imitations or free translations of the Greek, especially Aeschylus. The earliest of these was most likely the Atreus, which was performed in 140 BC, but which is now lost. He also wrote on some Roman subjects, one of which, an examination of the tyranny of L. Tarquinius Superbus and his expulsion by Lucius Junius Brutus, titled Brutus, and was probably written in honor of his patron D. Brutus. His favorite subjects were the legends of the Trojan War and the house of Pelops. While only fragments remain, the most important of which were preserved by Cicero, they seem sufficient to justify the terms of admiration in which Accius is spoken of by the ancient writers. He is particularly praised for the strength and vigor of his language and the sublimity of his thoughts, and although the grandiloquence of his literary style was on occasion mocked by some of his peers, he continued to be cited by other writers long after his death.

Accius wrote other works of a literary character: Libri Didascalicon, a treatise in verse on the history of Greek and Roman poetry, and dramatic art in particular; also Libri Pragmaticon, Parerga, and Praxidica, of which no fragments remain; and a hexameter Annales containing the history of Rome, like that of Ennius.