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Five hundred and nineteen years after the founding of Rome, Spurius Carvilius Ruga, at the advice of his friends, was the first Roman to divorce his wife, on the ground that she was barren and that he had taken oath before the censors that he married for the purpose of having children. 235 B.C. In iv. 3 Gellius gave the date as 231, following a different chronology. Dionysius of Halicarnassus agrees with the former (Varronian) chronology. On the formula liberty quaerundorum causa see note on iv. 3. 2 (vol. i, p. 322). In that same year the poet Naevius exhibited plays to the people, 235 B.C. and Marcus Varro says p. 259, Bipont. in the first book of his work On Poets that Naevius served in the first Punic war and that the poet himself makes that statement in the poem which he wrote on that same war. But Porcius Licinius says Frag. 1, Bährens. in the following verses that Rome was later in taking up the poetic art:
