MARCUS, an old Roman dramatist, was the nephew of Ennius, and was born at Brundisium about 219 B.C. Repairing to Rome, he soon gained general esteem for his skill both in poetry and painting. One of his pictures was hung up in the temple of Hercules in the Forum Boarium at Rome, and many years afterwards elicited the commendation of the elder Pliny. But the best fruits of his genius were those tragedies which, for eloquence and refinement, rivalled all their predecessors on the Latin stage. Not content with merely translating, as was the custom with the early Roman dramatists, the plays of the Greeks, he exercised his own artistic ingenuity upon the borrowed materials, and even wrote purely original dramas upon the history of his own nation. The closing years of the long life of Pacuvius were spent in the retirement of his native town. There he was wont to entertain with generous friendship his successful rival Accius; and there he died, at an advanced age, about 129 B.C. The fragments of Pacu-