Chapter VI: Section III

[a] Thyestes was a common and popular subject of ancient tragedy.

Indignatur item privatis, et prope socco
Dignis carminibus narrari coena Thyestæ.
HORAT. ARS POET. ver. 90.

[b] It was the custom of the colonies and municipal towns, to pay their court to some great orator at Rome, in order to obtain his patronage, whenever they should have occasion to apply to the senate for a redress of grievances.

[c] Domitius was another subject of tragedy, taken from the Roman story. Who he was, does not clearly appear. Brotier thinks it was Domitius, the avowed enemy of Julius Cæsar, who moved in the senate for a law to recall that general from the command of the army in Gaul, and, afterwards, on the breaking out of the civil war, fell bravely at the battle of Pharsalia. See Suetonius, Life of Nero, section 2. Such a character might furnish the subject of a tragedy. The Roman poets were in the habit of enriching their drama with domestic occurrences, and the practice was applauded by Horace.

Nec minimum meruêre decus, vestigia Græca
Ausi deserere, et celebrare domestica facta.
ARS POET. ver. 286.

No path to fame our poets left untried;
Nor small their merit, when with conscious pride
They scorn'd to take from Greece the storied theme,
But dar'd to sing their own domestic fame.
FRANCIS'S HORACE.