Livius Andronicus

Lucius Livius Andronicus
Detail of a poet giving directions from a theatrical scene. Roman mosaic from the tablinum Casa del Poeta tragico (VI 8, 3-5) in Pompeii. Naples National Archaeological Museum.
Born	c. 284 BC Taranto
Died	c. 205 BC Rome
Occupation	writer; Playwright; poet
Language	Latin
Notable works	Odyssey

Lucius Livius Andronicus (c. 284 – c. 205 BC) was a Greco-Roman dramatist and epic poet of the Old Latin period. He began as an educator in the service of a noble family at Rome by translating Greek works into Latin, including Homer's Odyssey. They were meant at first as educational devices in the school he founded. He wrote works for the stage—both tragedies and comedies—which are regarded as the first dramatic works written in the Latin language of ancient Rome. His comedies were based on Greek New Comedy and featured characters in Greek costume. Thus, the Romans referred to this new genre by the term comoedia palliata (fabula palliata). The Roman biographer Suetonius later coined the term "half-Greek" of Livius and Ennius (referring to their genre, not their ethnic backgrounds). The genre was imitated by the next dramatists to follow in Andronicus' footsteps and on that account he is regarded as the father of Roman drama and of Latin literature in general; that is, he was the first man of letters to write in Latin.Varro, Cicero, and Horace, all men of letters during the subsequent Classical Latin period, considered Livius Andronicus to have been the originator of Latin literature. He is the earliest Roman poet whose name is known.

In ancient sources, Livius Andronicus is either given that name or is simply called Livius. is the Latinization of a Greek name, which was held by a number of Greek historical figures of the period. It is generally considered that Andronicus came from his Greek name and that Livius, a name originally local to Latium, was the gentilicium, the family name, of his patron (patronus). His career at Rome was launched from servitude and he became a freedman (libertus) by the grace of his master, one of the Livia gens. The praenomen Lucius is given by Aulus Gellius and Cassiodorus.