The best known of all the fragments of Naevius, and the most favourable specimen of his style, is his epitaph:- Mortales immortales flere si foret fas, Flerent divae Camenae Naevium poetam, Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro, Obliti sunt Romae loquier Latina lingua.
"The Roman Poets of the Republic"
W. Y. Sellar
In their "Approbation" of the Concordia Germanico-Latina, edited by Reineccius, 1708, the Leipzig theologians remark pertinently: Melanchthon found it "impossible to leave a book as it once was."
"Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church"
Friedrich Bente
Heinsius wrote of the line, 'haec nec Latina sunt, nec satis intelligo quid sibi uelint'.
"The Last Poems of Ovid"
Ovid