Lucius Accius (170-85 BC) was the largest Roman tragedy dictator of republican times, both by his personality and by the extent of his literary work. biography
Accius was born in Pisaurium in Umbria in 170 BC, from a modest family of relatives. About 140 he began writing tragedies. Accius did not belong to the influential circuit of the Scipiones. Although he had a broad development in the spirit of Alexandrian personalities, he never let himself be seduced into political activity. Aware of his poetic gifts and intelligence, and too much to his own independence, he abandons all support and chooses to keep himself apart.
Only in the opinion of his predecessor Pacuvius he felt important, even though he was more than a generation younger. Marcus Tullius Cicero knows that in the year in which Pacuvius was 80 and Accius 30, a piece of each of them was performed at the same time. When Pacuvius retired in Tarentum at high age, Accius went to find him to read his Atreus in order to hear the opinion of his older colleague.
Accius's death can be found shortly after 86 BC because in that year he had a meeting with the youthful Cicero. Working
Accius's stage production was greater than that of any other author, but his oeuvre was lost, in 800's verses. There are, however, about 50 titles of his tragedies saved. In two fabulae praetextae he typically treated Roman motifs, which were dear to him. The substance for all other tragedies is mainly derived from the famous Greek sagas, mainly from Sophocles, though he was fairly free to run with his originals.
In addition to his stage activity, Accius also expressed interest in other facets of literature. In his Didascalics he gave a brief overview of the Greek sources of Roman poets, and of the history of Roman literature. His Pragmatics was about all kinds of specific literary issues. In his Pargerga, he showed interest in agriculture and nature, and with his Annales he took Ennius's track of history.
Quintilian admires the typical Roman moves in the poetry of Pacuvius and Accius: that, on the other hand, a lack of elegance depends on his judgment earlier with the time they wrote than with personal shortcomings of their literary talent. < / p>
wiki
