Ennius, who composed his _Annales_ in hexameter verse, introducing, for the first time, the Greek metre into Roman literature, mentions the verses which the _Fauns_, or religious poets, used to chant.

Scaliger thinks that the _Fauns_ were a class of men who exercised in Latium, at a very remote period, the same functions as the Magians in Persia and _the Bards in Gaul_.

Niebuhr supposes that the entire history of the Roman, kings was formed from poems into a prose narrative..