LIVINGSTONE MOUNTAINS

livingstone mountains, a band of highlands in german east africa, forming the eastern border of the rift-valley of lake nyasa, at the northern end of the lake. in parts these highlands, known also under their native name of kinga, present rather the character of a plateau than of a true mountain range, but the latter name may be justified by the fact that they form a comparatively narrow belt of country, which falls considerably to the east as well as to the west. the northern end is well marked in 8° 50 s. by an escarpment falling to the ruaha valley, which is regarded as a north-eastern branch of the main rift-valley. southwards the livingstone range terminates in the deep valley of the ruhuhu in 10° 30 s., the first decided break in the highlands that is reached from the north, on the east coast of nyasa. geologically the range is formed on the side of the lake by a zone of gneiss running in a series of ridges and valleys generally parallel to its axis. the ridge nearest the lake (which in mount jamimbi or chamembe, 9° 41 s., rises to an absolute height of 7870 ft., or 6200 ft. above nyasa) falls almost sheer to the water, the same steep slope being continued beneath the surface. towards the south the range appears to have a width of some 20 m. only, but northwards it widens out to about 40 m., though broken here by the depression, drained towards the ruaha, of buanyi, on the south side of which is the highest known summit of the range (9600 ft.). north and east of buanyi, as in the eastern half of the range generally, table-topped mountains occur, composed above of horizontally bedded quartzites, sandstones and conglomerates. the uplands are generally clothed in rich grass, forest occurring principally in the hollows, while the slopes towards the lake are covered with poor scrub. native settlements are scattered over the whole range, and german mission stations have been established at bulongwa and mtandala, a little north of the north end of nyasa. the climate is here healthy, and night frosts occur in the cold season. european crops are raised with success. at the foot of the mountains on lake nyasa are the ports of wiedhafen, at the mouth of the ruhuhu, and old langenburg, at the north-east corner of the lake. (e. he.) livius andronicus (c. 284-204 b.c.), the founder of roman epic poetry and drama. his name, in which the greek [greek: andronikos] is combined with the gentile name of one of the great roman houses, while indicative of his own position as a manumitted slave, is also significant of the influences by which roman literature was fostered, viz. the culture of men who were either greeks or "semi-graeci" by birth and education, and the protection and favour bestowed upon them by the more enlightened members of the roman aristocracy. he is supposed to have been a native of tarentum, and to have been brought, while still a boy, after the capture of that town in 272, as a slave to rome. he lived in the household of a member of the gens livia, probably m. livius salinator. he determined the course which roman literature followed for more than a century after his time. the imitation of greek comedy, tragedy and epic poetry, which produced great results in the hands of naevius, plautus, ennius and their successors, received its first impulse from him. to judge, however, from the insignificant remains of his writings, and from the opinions of cicero and horace, he can have had no pretension either to original genius or to artistic accomplishment. his real claim to distinction was that he was the first great schoolmaster of the roman people. we learn from suetonius that, like ennius after him, he obtained his living by teaching greek and latin; and it was probably as a school-book, rather than as a work of literary pretension, that his translation of the _odyssey_ into latin saturnian verse was executed. this work was still used in schools in the time of horace (_epp._ ii. 1., 69), and, although faultily executed, satisfied a real want by introducing the romans to a knowledge of greek. such knowledge became essential to men in a high position as a means of intercourse with greeks, while greek literature stimulated the minds of leading romans. moreover, southern italy and sicily afforded many opportunities for witnessing representations of greek comedies and tragedies. the romans and italians had an indigenous drama of their own, known by the name of _satura_, which prepared them for the reception of the more regular greek drama. the distinction between this _satura_ and the plays of euripides or menander was that it had no regular plot. this the latin drama first received from livius andronicus; but it did so at the cost of its originality. in 240, the year after the end of the first punic war, he produced at the ludi romani a translation of a greek play (it is uncertain whether a comedy or tragedy or both), and this representation marks the beginning of roman literature (livy vii. 2). livius himself took part in his plays, and in order to spare his voice he introduced the custom of having the solos (_cantica_) sung by a boy, while he himself represented the action of the song by dumb show. in his translation he discarded the native saturnian metre, and adopted the iambic, trochaic and cretic metres, to which latin more easily adapted itself than either to the hexameter or to the lyrical measures of a later time. he continued to produce plays for more than thirty years after this time. the titles of his tragedies--_achilles_, _aegisthus_, _equus trojanus_, _hermione_, _tereus_--are all suggestive of subjects which were treated by the later tragic poets of rome. in the year 207, when he must have been of a great age, he was appointed to compose a hymn of thanksgiving, sung by maidens, for the victory of the metaurus and an intercessory hymn to the aventine juno. as a further tribute of national recognition the "college" or "gild" of poets and actors was granted a place of meeting in the temple of minerva on the aventine. see fragments in l. muller, _livi andronici et cn. naevi fabularum reliquiae_ (1885); also j. wordsworth, _fragments and specimens of early latin_ (1874); mommsen, _hist. of rome_, bk. iii. ch. 14.