Editing Roman Republic (section)

===Literature===
{{Main|Classical Latin#Republican|Latin Literature#The Age of Cicero|}}
[[File:M. Tullius Cicero, Capitoline Museum, Rome (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Marble bust of [[Marcus Tullius Cicero]], Musei Capitolini, Rome]]

Early Roman literature was influenced heavily by Greek authors. From the mid-Republic, Roman authors followed Greek models, to produce free-verse and verse-form plays and other in Latin; for example, [[Livius Andronicus]] wrote tragedies and comedies. The earliest Latin works to have survived intact are the comedies of [[Plautus]], written during the mid-Republic. Works of well-known, popular playwrights were sometimes commissioned for performance at religious festivals; many of these were [[satyr play]]s, based on Greek models and Greek myths. The poet [[Gnaeus Naevius|Naevius]] may be said to have written the first Roman epic poem, although [[Ennius]] was the first Roman poet to write an epic in an adapted Latin hexameter. However, only fragments of Ennius' epic, the ''[[Annales (Ennius)|Annales]]'', have survived, yet both Naevius and Ennius influenced later Latin epic, especially [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]''. [[Lucretius]], in his ''[[On the Nature of Things]]'', explicated the tenets of [[Epicurean]] philosophy.

The politician, poet and philosopher [[Cicero]]'s literary output was remarkably prolific and so influential on contemporary and later literature that the period from 83 to 43&nbsp;BC has been called the "Age of Cicero". His oratory continues to influence modern speakers, while his philosophical works, particularly Cicero's Latin adaptations of Greek Platonic and Epicurean works, influenced many later philosophers.{{sfn|Zauzmer|2016}}{{sfn|Griffin|1986|pp=454–459}} Other prominent writers of this period include the grammarian and historian of religion [[Varro]], the politician, general and military commentator [[Julius Caesar]], the historian [[Sallust]] and the love poet [[Catullus]].