Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates
The oldest
Roman comic writer of note, Gnaeus Naevius, alone forms a remarkable
exception. Although he did not write exactly original Roman comedies,
the few fragments of his, which we possess, are full of references to
circumstances and persons in Rome. Among other liberties he not only
ridiculed one Theodotus a painter by name, but even directed against
the victor of Zama the following verses, of which Aristophanes need
not have been ashamed:
-Etiam qui res magnas manu saepe gessit gloriose,
Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solus praestat,
Eum suus pater cum pallio uno ab amica abduxit.-
As he himself says,
-Libera lingua loquemur ludis Liberalibus,-
he may have often written at variance with police rules, and put
dangerous questions, such as:
-Cedo qui vestram rem publicam tantam amisistis tam cito?-
which he answered by an enumeration of political sins, such as:
