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
In the former case they availed
themselves of the poetical art which was already to a certain extent
developed, and addressed themselves to a public with a taste for
poetry, which was not altogether wanting; in the latter case they
found the Greek forms ready to their hand, and addressed themselves
--as the interest of their subject stretching far beyond the bounds
of Latium naturally suggested--primarily to the cultivated foreigner.
The former plan was adopted by the plebeian authors, the latter by
those of quality; just as in the time of Frederick the Great an
aristocratic literature in the French language subsisted side by side
with the native German authorship of pastors and professors, and,
while men like Gleim and Ramler wrote war-songs in German, kings and
generals wrote military histories in French.
