Gnaeus Naevius (ca.

270 BCE – 201 BCE) is a Roman epic poet and dramatist of the Old Latin period.

He has a notable literary career at Rome until his satiric comments delivered in comedy anger the Metelli family, one of whom is consul.

After a sojourn in prison, he recants and is set free by the tribunes (who have the tribunician power, in essence the power of habeas corpus).

After a second offense, he is exiled to Tunisia, where he writes his own epitaph and commis suicide.

His comedies are in the genre of Palliata Comoedia, an adaptation of Greek New Comedy.

A soldier in the Punic Wars, he is highly patriotic, inventing a new genre called Praetextae Fabulae, an extension of tragedy to Roman national figures or incidents, named after the Toga praetexta worn by high officials.

Only fragments of several poems survive.