“
Still, however, in those less poetic departments of poetry, if we may so speak, which the Greeks had cultivated only in the later and less creative periods of their literature, the Romans seized the unoccupied ground, and asserted a distinct superiority. Wherever poetry would not disdain to become an art—wherever lofty sentiment, majestic, if elaborate, verse, unrivalled vigour in condensing and expressing moral truth, dignity, strength, solidity, as it were, of thought and language, not without wonderful richness and variety, could compensate for the chastened fertility of invention, the life and distinctness of conception, and the pure and translucent language, in which the Greek stands alone—there the Latin surpasses all poetry. In what is commonly called didactic poetry, whether it would convey in verse philosophical opinions, the principles of art, descriptions of scenery, or observations on life and manners, the Latin poets are of unrivalled excellence.
— HENRY HART MILMAN