Quam quum est negotium in negotio;
Nam cui quod agat institutum est, in illo negotio
Id agit; studet ibi, mentem atque animum delectat suum.
Otioso in otio animus nescit quid sibi velit.
Hoc idem est; neque domi nunc nos, nec militiæ sumus:
Imus huc, hinc illuc; quum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet.
Incerte errat animus—(172).”
_Medea_.—This play is imitated from the _Medea_ of Euripides. Since the
time of Paulus Manutius(173), an idea has prevailed that Ennius was the
author of two plays on the subject of Medea—one entitled _Medea_, and the
other _Medea Exsul_, both imitated from Greek originals of Euripides. This
opinion was formed in consequence of there being several passages of the
_Medea_ of Ennius, to which corresponding passages cannot be found in the
_Medea_ of Euripides, now extant; and it was confirmed by the grammarians
sometimes quoting the play by the title _Medea_, and at others by that of
_Medea Exsul_. Planck, however, in his recent edition of the fragments of
the Latin tragedy, conjectures that there was only one play, and that this
play was entitled by Ennius the _Medea Exsul_, which name was appropriate
to the subject; but that when quoted by the critics and old grammarians,
it was sometimes cited, as was natural, by its full title, at others
simply _Medea_. The lines in the Latin play, to which parallel passages
cannot be found in Euripides, he believes to be of Ennius’ own invention.
Osannus thinks, that neither the opinion of Manutius, nor of Planck, is
quite accurate. He believes that Euripides wrote a _Medea_, which he
afterwards revised and altered, in order to obviate the satiric criticisms
of Aristophanes. The Greek _Medea_, which we now have, he supposes to be
compounded of the original copy and the recension,—the ancient grammarians
having interpolated the manuscripts. Ennius, he maintains, employed the
original tragedy; and hence in the Latin play, we now find translations of
lines which were omitted both in the recension and in the compound
tragedy, which is at present extant(174).
The _Medea_ of Ennius was a popular drama at Rome, and was considered one
of the best productions of its author. Cicero asks, if there be any one
such a foe to the Roman name, as to reject or despise the _Medea_ of
Ennius. From the romantic interest of the subject, Medea was the heroine
of not less than four epic poems; and no fable, of Greek antiquity, was
more frequently dramatized by the Latin poets. Attius, Varro, Ovid, and
Seneca, successively imitated the tragedy of Ennius, and improved on their
model.
_Phœnix_.—There were two persons of this name in mythological story. One
the son of Agenor, and brother of Cadmus, who gave name to Phœnicia; the
other the preceptor of Achilles, who accompanied that hero to the Trojan
war. The only reason for supposing that the tragedy of Ennius related to
this latter person is, that a play founded on some part of his life was
written by Euripides, from whom the Roman poet has borrowed so much.
_Telamon_.—This play, of which no Greek original is known, seems to have
been devoted to a representation of the misfortunes of Telamon,
particularly the concluding period of his life, in which he heard of the
death of his eldest son Ajax, and the exile of his second son Teucer. To
judge from the fragments which remain, it must have been by far the finest
drama of Ennius. He thus happily versifies the celebrated sentiment of
Anaxagoras, and puts it into the mouth of Telamon, when he hears of the
death of his son—
“Ego quom genui, tum moriturum scivi, et ei rei sustuli;
Præterea ad Trojam quom misi ad defendendam Græciam,
Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere(175).”
Ennius being an inhabitant of _Magna Græcia_, probably held the Tuscan
soothsayers and diviners in great contempt. There is a long passage cited
by the grammarians as from this tragedy, (but which, I think, must rather
have belonged to his satires,) directed against that learned body, and
calculated to give them considerable offence—
“Non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem,
Non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos,
Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somniûm:
Non enim sunt ii, aut scientiâ, aut arte divinei;
Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque hariolei,
Aut inertes, aut insanei, aut quibus egestas imperat:
Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam;
Quibus divitias pollicentur ab iis drachmam ipsei petunt:
De his divitiis sibi deducant drachmam; reddant cætera(176).”
There is a good deal of wit and archness in the two concluding lines, and
the whole breathes a spirit of free-thinking, such as one might expect
from the translator of Euhemerus. In another passage, indeed, but which, I
presume, was attributed to an impious character, or one writhing under the
stroke of recent calamity, it is roundly declared that the gods take no
concern in human affairs, for if they did, the good would prosper, and the
wicked suffer, whereas it is quite the contrary:
“Ego Deûm genus esse semper dixi, et dicam cœlitum;
Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus;
Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis; quod nunc abest(177).”
_Telephus_ is probably taken from a lost play of Euripides, ridiculed by
Aristophanes in his _Acharnenses_, from a scene of which it would seem
that Telephus had appeared on the stage in tattered garments. The passages
of the Latin play which remain, exhibit Telephus as an exile from his
kingdom, wandering about in ragged habiliments. The lines of Horace, in
his Art of Poetry, (a work which is devoted to the subject of the Roman
drama,) are probably in allusion to this tragedy:
“Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exsul, uterque
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.”
_Thyestes_.—The loose and familiar numbers in which the tragedy of
Telephus was written, were by no means suitable to the atrocious subject
of the Supper of Thyestes. Ennius accordingly has been censured by Cicero,
in a passage of his _Orator_, for employing them in this drama.—“Similia
sunt quædam apud nostros; velut illa in Thyeste,
‘Quemnam te esse dicam! qui tarda in senectute,’
Et quæ sequuntur: quæ, nisi cum tibicen accesserit, orationi sunt solutæ
simillima.” There can therefore be little doubt that the passage in
Horace’s Art of Poetry, in which a tragedy on the subject of Thyestes is
blamed as flat and prosaic, and hardly rising above the level of ordinary
conversation in comedy, alluded to the work of Ennius—
“Indignatur item privatis, ac prope socco
Dignis carminibus, narrari cœna Thyestæ.”
Yet this spiritless tragedy, was very popular in Rome, and continued to be
frequently represented, till Varius treated the same subject in a manner,
as we are informed by Quintilian, equal to the Greeks(178).
It thus appears that Ennius has little claim to originality or invention
as a tragic author. Perhaps it may seem remarkable, that a poet of his
powerful genius did not rather write new plays, than copy servilely from
the Greeks. But nothing is ever invented where borrowing will as well
serve the purpose. Rome had few artists, in consequence of the facility
with which the finest specimens of the arts were procured by plundering
the towns of Sicily and Greece. Now, at the period in which Ennius
flourished, the productions of Grecian literature were almost as new to
the Romans as the most perfectly original compositions. Thus, the dramatic
works of Ennius were possessed of equal novelty for his audience as if
wholly his own; while a great deal of trouble was saved to himself. The
example, however, was unfortunate, as it communicated to Roman literature
a character of servility, and of imitation, or rather of translation, from
the Greek, which so completely pervaded it, that succeeding poets were
most faultless when they copied most closely, and at length, when they
abandoned the guides whom they had so long followed, they fell into
declamation and bombast. Probably, had the compositions of Ennius been
original, they would have been less perfect, than by being thus imitated,
or nearly translated, from the masterpieces of Greece. But the literature
of his country might ultimately have attained a higher eminence. The
imitative productions of Ennius may be likened to those trees which are
transplanted when far advanced in growth. Much at first appears to have
been gained; but it is certain, that he who sets the seedling is more
useful than the transplanter, and that, while the trees removed from their
native soil lose their original beauty and luxuriance without increase in
magnitude, the seedling swells in its parent earth to immensity of
size—fresh, blooming, and verdant in youth, vigorous in maturity, and
venerable in old age.
Nor, although Ennius was the first writer who introduced satiric
composition into Rome, are his pretensions, in this respect, to
originality, very distinguished. He adapted the ancient satires of the
Tuscan and Oscan stage to the closet, by refining their grossness,
softening their asperity, and introducing railleries borrowed from the
Greek poets, with whom he was familiar. His satires thus appear to have
been a species of _centos_ made up from passages of various poems, which,
by slight alterations, were humorously or satirically applied, and chiefly
to the delineation of character: “Carmen,” says Diomedes the grammarian,
“quod ex variis poematibus constabat satira vocabatur, quale scripserunt
Pacuvius et Ennius.” The fragments which remain of these satires are too
short and broken to allow us even to divine their subject. That entitled
_Asotus_ vel _Sotadicus_, is the representation of a luxurious, dissolute
man, and was so termed from Sotades, a voluptuous Cretan poet. Quintilian
also mentions, that one of his satires contained a Dialogue between Life
and Death, contending with each other, a mode of composition suggested
perhaps by the celebrated allegory of Prodicus. We are farther informed by
Aulus Gellius, that he introduced into another satire, with great skill
and beauty, Æsop’s fable of the Larks(179), now well known through the
imitation of Fontaine(180). The lark having built her nest among some
early corn, feared that it might be reaped before her young ones were fit
to take wing. She therefore desired them to report to her whatever
conversation they might hear in the fields during her absence. They first
informed her, that the husbandman had come to the spot, and desired his
son to summon their neighbours and friends to assist in cutting the crop
the next morning. The lark, on hearing this, declares, that there is no
occasion to be in any haste in removing. On the following day, it is again
reported, that the husbandman had desired that his relations should be
requested to assist him; and the lark is still of opinion that there is no
necessity to hurry away. At length, however, the young larks relate, that
the husbandman had announced that he would execute the work himself. On
hearing this, the old lark said it was now time to be gone. She
accordingly removed her younglings, and the corn was immediately cut down
by the master. From this tale Ennius deduces as the moral,
“Hoc erit tibi argumentum semper in promptu situm;
Ne quid expectes amicos, quod tute agere possis.”
It is certainly much to be regretted that we possess so scanty fragments
of these satires, which would have been curious as the first attempts at a
species of composition which was carried to such perfection by succeeding
Latin poets, and which has been regarded as almost peculiar to the Romans.
The great work, however, of Ennius, and of which we have still
considerable remains, was his Annals, or metrical chronicles, devoted to
the celebration of Roman exploits, from the earliest periods to the
conclusion of the Istrian war. These Annals were written by our poet in
his old age; at least, Aulus Gellius informs us, on the authority of
Varro, that the twelfth book was finished by him in his sixty-seventh
year(181).
It may perhaps appear strange, that, when the fabulous exploits, the
superstitions, the characters and the manners, of the heroic ages, were so
admirably adapted for poetical imagery, and had been so successfully
employed in Greece, the chief work of the Father of Roman Song should have
been a sort of versified newspaper, like the _Henriade_ of Voltaire, or
the _Araucana_ of Alonco de Ercilla: For in other countries poetry has
been earliest devoted to the decoration of those marvels in which the
_amantes mira Camœnæ_ chiefly rejoice. In most lands, however, the origin
of poetry was coeval with the rise of the nation, and every thing seems
wondrous to an ignorant and timid race. The Greeks, in their first
poetical age, peopled every grove and lake with fauns and naiads, or
personified the primeval powers of nature. They sung the fables concerning
their gods, and the exploits of heroes, in those ancient verses which have
been combined in the Theogony attributed to Hesiod, and those immortal
rhapsodies which have formed the basis of the Homeric poems. The
marvellous vision of Dante was the earliest effort of the Italian muse;
and some of the first specimens of verse in France and England were wild
adventures in love or arms, interspersed with stories of demons and
enchanters. But in Rome, though the first effort of the language was in
poetry, five hundred years had elapsed from the foundation of the city
before this effort was made. At that period, the Romans were a rude but
rational race. The locks of Curius were perhaps uncombed; but though the
Republic had as yet produced no character of literary elegance, she had
given birth to Cincinnatus, and Fabricius, and Camillus. Her citizens had
neither been rendered timid nor indolent by their superstitions, but were
actively employed in agriculture or in arms. They were a less
contemplative and imaginative race than the Greeks. Their spirit was
indeed sufficiently warlike; but that peculiar spirit of adventure, (which
characterised the early ages of Greece, and the middle ages of modern
Europe,) had, if it ever existed, long ago ceased in Rome. By this time,
the Roman armies were too well disciplined, and the system of warfare too
regular, to admit a description of the picturesque combats of the Greek
and Trojan charioteers. Poetry was thus too late in its birth to take a
natural flight. In such circumstances, the bard, however rich or lofty
might be his conceptions, would not listen to his own taste or
inspiration, but select the theme which was likely to prove most popular;
and the Romans, being a national and ambitious people, would be more
gratified by the jejune relation of their own exploits, than by the
_speciosa miracula_ of the most sublime or romantic invention.
The Annals of Ennius were partly founded on those ancient traditions and
old heroic ballads, which Cicero, on the authority of Cato’s _Origines_,
mentions as having been sung at feasts by the guests, many centuries
before the age of Cato, in praise of the heroes of Rome(182). Niebuhr has
attempted to show, that all the memorable events of Roman history had been
versified in ballads, or metrical chronicles, in the Saturnian measure,
before the time of Ennius; who, according to him, merely expressed in the
Greek hexameter, what his predecessors had delivered in a ruder strain,
and then maliciously depreciated these ancient compositions, in order that
he himself might be considered as the founder of Roman poetry(183). The
devotion of the Decii, and death of the Fabian family,—the stories of
Scævola, Cocles, and Coriolanus,—Niebuhr believes to have been the
subjects of romantic ballads. Even Fabius Pictor, according to this
author, followed one of these old legends in his narrative concerning Mars
and the Wolf, and his whole history of Romulus. Livy, too, in his account
of the death of Lucretia, has actually transcribed from one of these
productions; since what Sextus says, on entering the chamber of Lucretia,
is nearly in the Saturnian measure:—
“Tace, Lucretia, inquit, Sextus Tarquinius sum,
Ferrum in manu est, moriere si emiseris vocem(184).”
But the chief work, according to Niebuhr, from which Ennius borrowed, was
a romantic epopee, or chronicle, made up from these heroic ballads about
the end of the fourth century of Rome, commencing with the accession of
Tarquinius Priscus, and ending with the battle of Regillus. The arrival,
says Niebuhr, of that monarch under the name of Lucumo—his exploits and
victories—his death—then the history of Servius Tullius—the outrageous
pride of Tullia—the murder of the lawful monarch—the fall of the last
Tarquin, preceded by a supernatural warning—Lucretia—Brutus and the truly
Homeric battle of Regillus—compose an epic, which, in poetical incident,
and splendour of fancy, surpasses everything produced in the latter ages
of Rome(185). The battle of Regillus, in particular, as described by the
annalists, bears evident marks of its poetical origin. It was not a battle
between two hosts, but a struggle of heroes. As in the fights painted in
the Iliad, the champions meet in single combat, and turn by individual
exertions the tide of victory. The dictator Posthumius wounds King
Tarquin, whom he had encountered at the first onset. The Roman knight
Albutius engages with the Latin chief Mamilius, but is wounded by him, and
forced to quit the field. Mamilius then nearly breaks the Roman line, but
is slain by the Consul Herminius, which decides the fate of the day. After
the battle of Regillus, all the events are not so completely poetical; but
in the siege of Veii we have a representation of the ten years war of
Troy. The secret introduction of the troops by Camillus into the middle of
the city resembles the story of the wooden horse, and the Etruscan statue
of Juno corresponds to the Trojan Palladium(186).
Any period of history may be thus exhibited in the form of an epic cycle;
and, though there can be little doubt of the existence of ancient
Saturnian ballads at Rome, I do not think that Niebuhr has adduced
sufficient proof or authority for his magnificent epopee, commencing with
the accession of Tarquin, and ending with the battle of Regillus. With
regard to the accusation against Ennius, of depreciating the ancient
materials which he had employed, it is founded on the contempt which he
expresses for the verses of the Fauns and the Prophets. His obligations,
if he owed any, he has certainly nowhere acknowledged, at least in the
fragments which remain; and he rather betrays an anxiety, at the
commencement of his poem, to carry away the attention of the reader from
the Saturnian muses, and direct it to the Grecian poets,—to Pindus, and
the nymphs of Helicon.
He begins his Annals with an invocation to the nine Muses, and the account
of a vision in which Homer had appeared to him, and related the story of
the metamorphosis already mentioned:—
“Visus Homerus adesse poeta:
Hei mihi qualis erat, quantum mutatus ab illo!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Septingenti sunt, paulo plus vel minus, anni
Quom memini fieri me pavom.”
Ennius afterwards invokes a great number of the Gods, and then proceeds to
the history of the Alban kings. The dream of the Vestal Virgin Ilia, which
announced her pregnancy by Mars, and the foundation of Rome, is related in
verses of considerable beauty and smoothness, by Ilia to her sister
Eurydice.—
“Talia commemorat lacrumans, exterrita somno;
‘Euridica prognata, pater quam noster amavit,
Vivens vita meum corpus nunc deserit omne.
Nam me visus homo polcer per amœna salicta
Et ripas raptare, locosque novos: ita sola
Post illa, germana soror, errare videbar;
Tardaque vestigare, et quærere, neque posse
Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem stabilibat.
Exin compellare pater me voce videtur
Heis verbis—O gnata, tibi sunt antegerendæ
Ærumnæ; post ex fluvio fortuna resistet.
Hæc pater ecfatus, germana, repente recessit;
Nec sese dedit in conspectum corde cupitus:
Quamquam multa manus ad cœli cærula Templa
Tendebam lacrumans, et blanda voce vocabam.
Vix ægro tum corde meo me somnus reliquit(187).’”
In these lines there is considerable elegance and pathos; and the contest
which immediately succeeds between Romulus and Remus for the sovereignty
of Rome, is as remarkable for dignity and animation:
“Curanteis magnâ cum curâ, concupienteis
Regnei, dant operam simul auspicio, augurioque:
Hinc Remus auspicio se devovet, atque secundam
Solus avem servat: at Romolus polcer in alto
Quærit Aventino, servans genus altivolantum.
Omnis cura vireis, uter esset Endoperator.
Exspectant, veluti consol, quom mittere signum
Volt, omneis avidei spectant ad carceris oras,
Qua mox emittat picteis ex faucibus currus.
Sic exspectabat populus, atque ore timebat
Rebus, utrei magnei victoria sit data regnei.
Interea Sol albus recessit in infera noctis:
Exin Candida se radiis dedit icta foras lux:
Et simol ex alto longe polcerrima præpes
Læva volavit avis: simol aureus exoritur sol.
Cedunt ter quatuor de cælo corpora sancta
Avium, præpetibus sese, polcreisque loceis dant.
Conspicit inde sibei data Romolus esse priora,
Auspicio regni stabilita scamna, solumque(188).”
The reigns of the kings, and the contests of the republic with the
neighbouring states previous to the Punic war, occupy the metrical annals
to the end of the sixth book(189), which concludes with the following
noble answer of Pyrrhus to the Roman ambassadors, who came to ransom the
prisoners taken from them by that prince in battle:—
“Nec mî aurum posco, nec mî pretium dederitis;
Nec cauponantes bellum, sed belligerantes;
Ferro, non auro, vitam cernamus utrique,
Vosne velit, an me regnare Hera; quidve ferat sors
Virtute experiamur; et hoc simol accipe dictum:
Quorum virtutei belli fortuna pepercit,
Horumdem me libertatei parcere certum est:
Dono ducite, doque volentibus cum magneis Dîs(190).”
Cicero, in his _Brutus_, says, that Ennius did not treat of the first
Punic war, as Nævius had previously written on that subject(191); to which
prior work Ennius thus alludes:—
“Scripsere alii rem,
Versibus, quos olim Faunei, vatesque canebant.”
P. Merula, however, who edited the fragments of Ennius, is of opinion,
that this passage of Cicero can only mean that he had not entered into
much detail of its events, as he finds several lines in the seventh book,
which, he thinks, evidently apply to the first Carthaginian war,
particularly the description of naval preparations, and the building of
the first fleet with which the Carthaginians were attacked by the Romans.
In some of the editions of Ennius, the character of the friend and
military adviser of Servilius, generally supposed to be intended as a
portrait of the poet himself(192), is ranged under the seventh book:—
“Hocce locutus vocat, quicum bene sæpe libenter
Mensam, sermonesque suos, rerumque suarum
Comiter impertit; magna quum lapsa dies jam
Parte fuisset de parvis summisque gerendis,
Consilio, induforo lato, sanctoque senatu;
Cui res audacter magnas, parvasque, jocumque
Eloqueret, quæ tincta maleis, et quæ bona dictu
Evomeret, si quid vellet, tutoque locaret.
Quocum multa volup ac gaudia clamque palamque.
Ingenium cui nulla malum sententia suadet,
Ut faceret facinus; lenis tamen, haud malus; idem
Doctus, fidelis, suavis homo, facundus, suoque
Contentus, scitus, atque beatus, secunda loquens in
Tempore commodus, et verborum vir paucorum.
Multa tenens antiqua sepulta, et sæpe vetustas
Quæ facit, et mores veteresque novosque tenentem
Multorum veterum leges, divumque hominumque
Prudentem, qui multa loquive, tacereve possit.
Hunc inter pugnas compellat Servilius sic(193).”