born 239, Rudiae, southern Italy
died 169 BC
Roman poet, dramatist, and satirist.
The most influential of the early Latin poets, he is considered the founder of Roman literature. His epic Annales , a narrative poem telling the story of Rome from the wanderings of Aeneas to the poet's own day, was the national epic until it was eclipsed by Virgil 's Aeneid . He excelled in tragedy, adapting 19 plays from the Greek, of which only about 420 lines survive.