CHAPTER IV.

ENNIUS.

The impulse given to Latin literature by Naevius was mainly in two

directions, that of comedy and of a rude epic poetry, drawing its

subjects from Roman traditions and contemporary history. In comedy the

work begun by him was carried on with great vigour and success by his

younger contemporary Plautus; and, in a strictly chronological history

of Roman literature, his plays would have to be examined next in

order. But it will be more convenient to defer the consideration of

Roman comedy, as a whole, till a later chapter, and for the present to

direct attention to the results produced by the immediate successor of

Naevius in epic poetry, Q. Ennius.

The fragments of Ennius will repay a more minute examination than

those of any author belonging to the first period of Roman literature.

They are of more intrinsic value, and they throw more light on the

spirit of the age in which they were written. It was to him, not to

Naevius or to Plautus, that the Romans looked as the father of their

literature. He did more than any other man to make the Roman language

a vehicle of elevated feeling, by forcing it to conform to the

metrical conditions of Greek poetry; and he was the first fully

to elicit the deeper veins of sentiment latent in the national

imagination. The versatility of his powers, his large acquaintance

with Greek literature, his sympathy with the practical interests of

his time, the serious purpose and the intellectual vigour with which

he carried out his work, enabled him to be in letters, what Scipio was

in action, the most vital representative of his epoch. It has

happened too that the fragments from his writings and the testimonies

concerning him are more expressive and characteristic than in the

case of any other among the early writers. There are none of his

contemporaries, playing their part in war or politics, and not many

among the writers of later times, of whom we can form so distinct an

image.

I. LIFE, TIMES, AND PERSONAL TRAITS.

I. He was born at Rudiae, a town of Calabria, in B.C. 239, the year

after the first representation of a drama on the Roman stage. He first

entered Rome in B.C. 204, in the train of Cato, who, when acting as

quaestor in Sardinia, found the poet in that island serving, with the

rank of centurion, in the Roman army. In the poem of Silius Italicus,

he is fancifully represented as distinguishing himself in personal

combat like one of the heroes of the Iliad. After this time he

resided at Rome, 'living,' according to the statement of Jerome,

'very plainly, on the Aventine' (the Plebeian quarter of the city),

'attended only by a single maid-servant[1],' and supporting himself by

teaching Greek and by his writings. He accompanied M. Fulvius Nobilior

in his Aetolian campaign. Through the influence of his son, he

obtained the honour of Roman citizenship, probably at the time when

the colony of Pisaurum was planted in B.C. 184. This distinction

Ennius has himself recorded in a line of the Annals which indicates

the high value which the Roman allies attached to this privilege:--

Nos sumu' Romani qui fuvimus ante Rudini.

He lived on terms of intimacy with influential members of the noblest

families in Rome, and became the familiar friend of the great Scipio.

When he died at the age of seventy, his bust was believed to be placed

in the tomb of the Scipios, between those of the conqueror of Hannibal

and of the conqueror of Antiochus. He died in the year B.C. 169. The

most famous of his works were his Tragedies and the Annals, a long

historical poem written in eighteen books. But, in addition to these,

he composed several miscellaneous works, of which only very scanty

fragments have been preserved.

Among the circumstances which prepared him to be the principal creator

of the national literature, his birthplace and origin, the kind of

education available to him in his early years, and the experience

which awaited him when first entering on life, had a strong

determining influence. His birthplace, Rudiae, is called by Strabo

'a Greek city'; but it was not a Greek colony, like Tarentum and the

other cities of Magna Graecia, but an old Italian town, (the epithet

_vetustae_ is applied to it by Silius) which had been partially

Hellenised, but still retained its native traditions and the use of

the Oscan language. Ennius is thus spoken of as 'Semi-Graecus.' He

laid claim to be descended from the old Messapian kings, a claim which

Virgil is supposed to acknowledge in the introduction of Messapus

leading his followers in the gathering of the Italian races,

Ibant aequati numero regemque canebant.

This claim to royal descent indicates that the poet was a member

of the better class of families in his native district; and the

consciousness of old lineage, which prompted the claim, probably

strengthened the high self-confidence by which he was animated, and

helped to determine the strong aristocratic bias of his sympathies.

He bore witness to his nationality in the saying quoted by Gellius[2]

that 'in the possession of the Greek, Oscan, and Latin speech, he

possessed three hearts.' Of these three languages the Oscan, as the

one of least value to acquire for the purposes of literature or of

social intercourse, was most likely to have been his inherited tongue.

Rudiae, from its Italian nationality, from its neighbourhood to the

cities of Magna Graecia, and from its relation of dependence on Rome,

must have been in the time of the boyhood of Ennius a meeting-place,

not only of three different languages,--that of common life, that

of culture and education, that of military service--but of the three

different spirits or tendencies which were operative in the creation

of the new literature. To his home among the hills overlooking the

Grecian seas[3]--referred to in the expression of Ovid,--

Calabris in montibus ortus--

and in the phrase of Silius,--

Hispida tellus

Miserunt Calabri; Rudiae genuere vetustae,

the poet owed the 'Italian heart,' the virtue of a race still

uncorrupted and unsophisticated, the buoyant energy and freshness

of feeling which enabled him to apprehend all the novelty and the

greatness of the momentous age through which he lived. The South of

Italy afforded, at this time, means of education, which were denied to

Rome or Latium; and the peace enjoyed by his native district for the

first twenty years of his life granted to Ennius leisure to avail

himself of these means, which he could not have enjoyed had he been

born a few years later. In the short account of his life in Jerome's

continuation of the Eusebian Chronicle, it is stated that he was born

at Tarentum. Though this is clearly an error, it seems probable that

the poet may have spent the years of his education there. Though

Tarentum, since its capture by the Romans, had lost its political

importance, it still continued to be a centre of Greek culture and of

social pleasure. Dramatic representations had been especially popular

among a people who had drifted far away 'ex Spartana dura illa et

horrida disciplina[4]' of their ancestors. From the knowledge of the

Attic tragedians displayed by Ennius in his later career it is likely

that he had witnessed representations of their works on a Greek stage,

before he began, in middle life, to direct his own genius to dramatic

composition. The knowledge and admiration of Homer which stimulated

him to the composition of his greatest work, might have been acquired

in any centre of Greek culture. But the intellectual interests

indicated in some of his miscellaneous writings have a kind of local

character, distinguishing them alike from the older philosophies of

Athens and from the more recent science of Alexandria. His acceptance

of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls and the physical

fancies expressed in some of the fragments of the Epicharmus probably

came to him from the teaching of the Neo-Pythagoreans, who were

widely spread among the Greeks of Southern Italy. The rationalistic

speculations of Euhemerus, which appear in strange union with the

'somnia Pythagorea' of the Annals, were of Sicilian origin. The

gastronomic treatise, which Ennius afterwards translated into Latin,

was the work of Archestratus of Gela. The class of persons for whom

such a work would originally be written was likely to be found among

the luxurious livers of Sicily and Magna Graecia. Thus while the

serious poetry of Ennius was inspired by the older and nobler works

of Greek genius, the influence of a more vulgar and prosaic class

of teachers, transmitted by him to Roman thought and literature, was

probably derived from the place of his early education.

His Italian spirit, and the Greek culture acquired by him in early

youth, were two of the conditions out of which the new literature was

destined to arise. The third condition was his steadfast and ardent

Roman patriotism. Born more than a generation after his native

district had ceased to be at war with Rome, he grew up to manhood

during the years of peace between the first and second Carthaginian

wars, when the supremacy of Rome was loyally accepted. Between early

manhood and middle life he was a witness of and an actor in the

protracted and long doubtful struggle between the two great Imperial

States, on the issue of which hung the future destinies of the

world:--

Omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu

Horrida contremuere sub altis aetheris oris;

In dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum

Omnibus humanis esset terraque marique[5].

Though during that struggle the loyalty of some of the Italian

communities was shaken, yet the aristocratic party in every city, and

the Greek States generally, were true to the Roman alliance[6].

Thus his political sympathies, as well as his Greek education, would

incline Ennius to identify himself with the cause of Rome, and his

ardent imagination apprehended the grandeur and majesty with which she

played her part in the contest. It was in the Second Punic War that

the ideal of what was greatest in the character and institutions of

Rome was most fully realised. Her good fortune supplied from among

the contingent furnished to the war by her Messapian allies a man of

a nature so sympathetic with her own and an imagination so vivid as to

gain for the ideal thus created a permanent realisation.

Of the share which Ennius had in the war we know only that he served

in Sardinia with the rank of centurion. That he had become a man of

some note in that capacity is suggested by the fact that he attracted

the attention of the Roman quaestor Cato, and accompanied him to Rome.

A certain dramatic interest attaches to this first meeting of the

typical representative of Roman manners and traditions and great enemy

of foreign innovations, with the man by whom, more than by any one

else, the mind of Rome was enlarged and liberalised, and many of her

most cherished convictions were most seriously undermined. This actual

service in a great war left its impress on the work done by Ennius.

Fragments both of his tragedies and his Annals prove how thoroughly

he understood and appreciated the best qualities of the soldierly

character. This fellowship in hardship and danger fitted him to become

the national poet of a race of soldiers. He has drawn from his own

observation an image of the fortitude and discipline of the Roman

armies, and of the patriotic devotion and resolution of the men

by whom these armies were led. There is a strong realism in the

expression of martial sentiment in Ennius, marking him out as a man

familiar with the life of the camp and the battle-field, and quite

distinct from the idealising enthusiasm of Livy and Virgil[7].

Ennius entered on his career as a writer at a time when the long

strain of a great struggle was giving place to the confidence and

security of a great triumph. He lived for thirty-five years longer,

witnessing the rapid advance of Roman conquest in Greece and Asia,

and over the barbarous tribes of the West. He died one year before

the crowning victory of Pydna. During all his later life his sanguine

spirit and patriotic enthusiasm were buoyed up by the success of the

Roman and Italian arms abroad; while his political sympathies were in

thorough accord with the dominant influences in the government of the

State. At no other period of Roman history was the ascendency of the

Senate and of the great houses more undisputed, or, on the whole, more

wisely and ably exercised. In the lists of those who successively fill

the great curule magistracies, we find almost exclusively the names of

members of the old patrician or of the more recent plebeian nobility.

At no other period does the tribunician opposition to the senatorian

direction of affairs and to the authority of the magistrate appear

weaker or more intermittent. It was not till a generation after the

death of Ennius that the moral corruption and political and social

disorganisation--the ultimate results of the great military successes

gained under the absolute ascendency of the Senate,--became fully

manifest. It is difficult to say how far the aristocratic and

antipopular bias of all Roman literature may have been determined by

the political conditions of the time in which that literature received

the most powerful impulse, and by the personal relations and peculiar

stamp of character of the man by whom that impulse was given.

Along with the military and political activity of the time, during

which Ennius lived in Rome, the stirring of a new intellectual life

was apparent. Even during the war dramatic representations continued

to take place, and the most active part of the career of Naevius, and

a considerable part of that of Plautus, belong to the years during

which Hannibal was still in Italy. After the cessation of the war, we

note in the pages of Livy that much greater prominence is given to

the celebration of public games, of which at this time dramatic

representations formed the chief part. The regular holidays for which

the Aediles provided these entertainments became more numerous; and

the art of the dramatist was employed to enhance the pomp of the

spectacle on the occasion of a great triumph, or of the funeral of an

illustrious man. The death of Livius Andronicus and the banishment of

Naevius, which must have happened about the time that Ennius arrived

at Rome, had deprived the Roman stage of the only writers of any

name, who had attempted to introduce upon it the works of the Greek

tragedians. Ennius had, indeed, rather to create than to revive the

taste for tragedy. The prologue to the Amphitryo[8] shows how much

more congenial the reproduction of the ordinary life of the Greeks

was to the uneducated audiences of Rome than the higher effort to

familiarise them with the personages and adventures of the heroic age.

The great era of Roman comedy was coincident with the literary career

of Ennius. It was then that the best extant plays of Plautus were

produced, and that Caecilius Statius, whom ancient critics ranked as

his superior, flourished. The quality attributed to the latter in the

line of Horace,

Vincere Caecilius gravitate, Terentius arte,

indicates a closer affinity with the spirit of Ennius, than the moral

and political indifference of the older dramatist. The aim of Ennius

was to raise literature from being a mere popular recreation, and to

bring it into accord with the higher mood of the nation; to use it as

a medium both of elevation and enlightenment. In carrying out this

aim he appealed to the temper and to the newly awakened interests of

members of the aristocratic class, who were coming into close contact

with educated Greeks, and were beginning to appreciate the treasures

of art and literature now opened up to them. The career of Q. Fabius

Pictor, the first historian of Rome, and the first who made a name

for himself in painting, who lived at this time, attests this twofold

attraction. The friendly relations which Roman generals, such as T.

Quintius Flamininus, established with the famous Greek cities, in

which they appeared as liberators rather than conquerors, were the

result of intellectual enthusiasm as much as of a definite policy.

With the wars of Pyrrhus and the capture of Tarentum, the first stage

of the process described in the lines of Horace began[9]: the end of

the Second Punic War was the second stage in the process. It is to

this period, rather than to the progress of the war, that the words of

the Grammarian, Porcius Licinus, most truly apply,

Poenico bello secundo Musa pinnato gradu

Intulit se bellicosam in Romuli gentem feram.

The more frequent and closer contact with the mind of Greece not only

refined the taste and enlarged the intelligence of those capable of

feeling its influence, but produced at the same time a change in

men's deepest convictions. Though the definite tenets of Stoicism

and Epicureanism did not acquire ascendency till a later time, the

dissolving force of Greek speculative thought and Greek views of life

forced its way into Rome through various channels,--especially through

the adaptations of the tragedies of Euripides and of the comedy

of Menander. All these tendencies of the time acted on Ennius,

stimulating his mental activity in various directions. His natural

temperament and his acquired culture brought him into harmony with

the spirit of his age without raising him too much above it. A poet

of more delicacy of taste and perfection of execution would have been

unintelligible to his contemporaries. A more systematic thinker would

have been out of harmony with the conditions of life by which he was

surrounded. Breadth, vigour, a spirit clinging to what was most vital

in the old state of things, and yet readily adapting itself to what

was new, were the qualities needed to establish a literature true

to the genius of Rome in the second century B.C., and containing the

promise of the more perfect accomplishment of a later age. And these

qualities belonged to Ennius by natural gifts and the experience and

culture of his earlier years.

There is no reason to believe that he had obtained any eminence in

literature before he settled in middle age at Rome. His genius was

of that robust order which grows richer and livelier with advancing

years. The Annals was the work of his old age,--the ripe fruit of

a strong and energetic manhood, prolonged to the last in hopeful

activity. Cicero speaks of 'the cheerfulness with which he bore the

two evils of old age and poverty[10].' Wherever the poet speaks of

himself, his words reveal a sanguine and contented spirit; as, in that

fine simile, where he compares himself, at the close of his active and

successful career, to a brave horse which has often won the prize at

the Olympian games, and in old age obtains his well-deserved repose:--

Sicut fortis equus, spatio qui saepe supremo

Vicit Olimpia, nunc senio confectu' quiescit.

In none of his fragments is there any trace of that melancholy

after-thought which pervades the poetry of his greatest successors,

Lucretius and Virgil. From the humorous exaggeration of Horace,

Ennius ipse pater nunquam, nisi potus, ad arma

Prosiluit dicenda;

and from the poet's own confession,

Nunquam poetor, nisi si podager,

it may be inferred that he belonged to the class of poets of a lusty

and social nature, of which Dryden is a type in modern times, who

enjoyed the pleasures of wine and good fellowship. The well-known

anecdote, told by Cicero, of the interchange of visits between Scipio

Nasica and Ennius[11], though not a brilliant specimen of Roman wit,

is interesting from the light which it throws on the easy terms of

intimacy in which the poet lived with the members of the most eminent

Roman families. Such testimonies and traits of personal character make

us think of Ennius as a man of genial and social temper, as well as of

'an intense and glowing mind.'

It was probably through his position as a teacher of Greek that Ennius

first became known to the leading men of Rome. If this position was at

first one of dependence, similar to that in which in earlier times the

client stood to his patron, it soon changed into one of mutual esteem

and admiration. We can best understand the relation in which he stood

to men eminent in the state and in the camp, from a passage from the

seventh book of the Annals quoted by Aulus Gellius. In that passage

the poet is stated, on the authority of L. Aelius Stilo[12] (an early

grammarian, a friend of Lucilius, and one of Cicero's teachers),

to have drawn his own portrait, under an imaginary description of

a confidential friend of the Roman general, Servilius Geminus. The

portrait has the air of being drawn from the life, with a rapid and

forcible hand, and with a minuteness of detail significant of close

personal observation:--

Haece locutu' vocat quocum bene saepe libenter

Mensam sermonesque suos rerumque suarum

Congeriem partit, magnam cum lassu' diei

Partem fuisset de summis rebu' regendis

Consilio, indu foro lato sanctoque senatu:

Cui res audacter magnas parvasque jocumque

Eloqueretur, cuncta simul malaque et bona dictu

Evomeret, si qui vellet, tutoque locaret.

Quocum multa volup ac gaudia clamque palamque!

Ingenium cui nulla malum sententia suadet

Ut faceret facinus levis aut malu', doctu', fidelis,

Suavis homo, facundu', suo contentu', beatus,

Scitu', secunda loquens in tempore, commodu', verbum

Paucum, multa tenens antiqua sepulta, vetustas

Quem fecit mores veteresque novosque tenentem,

Multorum veterum leges divumque hominumque;

Prudenter qui dicta loquive tacereve possit.

Hunc inter pugnas Servilius sic compellat[13].

There are many touches in this picture, which suggest the kind of

intimacy in which Ennius may have lived with Fulvius Nobilior when

accompanying him in his Aetolian campaign, or his bearing when taking

part in the light or serious talk of the Scipios. The learning and

power of speech, the knowledge of antiquity and of the manners of the

day, attributed to this friend of Servilius, were gifts which we may

attribute to the poet both on ancient testimony and on the evidence

afforded by the fragments of his writings. The good sense, tact, and

knowledge of the world, the cheerfulness in life and conversation, the

honour and integrity of character represented in the same passage, are

among the personal qualities which, in all ages, form a bond of union

between men eminent in great practical affairs and men eminent in

literature. Such were the qualities which, according to his own

account, recommended Horace to the intimate friendship of Maecenas.

Many expressive fragments from the lost poetry of Ennius give

assurance that he was a man in whom learning and the ardent

temperament of genius were happily united with the worth and sense

described in this nameless portrait.

By his personal merit he broke through the strongest barriers ever

raised by national and family pride, and made the name of poet,

instead of a reproach, a name of honour with the ruling class at Rome.

The favourable impression which he produced on the 'primitive virtue'

of Cato, by whom he was first brought to Rome, was more probably due

to his force of character and social qualities than to his genius and

literary accomplishment,--qualities seemingly little valued by his

earliest patron, who, in one of his speeches, reproached Fulvius

Nobilior with allowing himself to be accompanied by a poet in his

campaign. But the strongest proof of the worth and the wisdom of

Ennius is his intimate friendship with the greatest Roman of the

age, and the conqueror of the greatest soldier of antiquity. It

is honourable to the friendship of generous natures, that the poet

neither sought nor gained wealth from this intimacy, but continued to

live plainly and contentedly on the Aventine. Yet after death it was

believed that the two friends were not divided; and the bust of the

provincial poet found a place among the remains of that time-honoured

family, the record of whose grandeur has been preserved, even to

the present day, in the august simplicity of their monumental

inscriptions.

The elder Africanus may have been attracted to Ennius not only by his

passion for Greek culture, but by a certain community of nature. The

mystical enthusiasm, the high self-confidence, the direct simplicity

combined with majesty of character, impressed on the language of the

poet were equally impressed on the action and bearing of the soldier.

The feeling which Ennius in his turn entertained for Scipio was one

of enthusiastic admiration. While paying due honour to the merits and

services of other famous men, even of such as Cato and Fabius, who

were most opposed to his idol, of Scipio he said that Homer alone

could worthily have uttered his praises[14].

In addition to the part which he assigned to him in the Ninth Book

of the Annals, he devoted a separate poem to commemorate his

achievements. He has left also two short inscriptions, written in

elegiac verse, in which he proclaims in words of burning enthusiasm

the momentous services and transcendent superiority of the 'great

world's victor's victor'--

Hic est ille situs cui nemo civi' neque hostis

Quivit pro factis reddere opis pretium[15];

and this also,

A sole exoriente supra Maeoti' paludes

Nemo est qui factis me aequiperare queat.

Si fas endo plagas caelestium ascendere cuiquam est,

Mi soli caeli maxima porta patet[16].

With many marked differences, which distinguish a man of active,

social, and national sympathies from a student of Nature and a thinker

on human life, there is a certain affinity of character and genius

between Ennius and Lucretius. Enthusiastic admiration of personal

greatness is one prominent feature in which they resemble one another.

But while Lucretius is the ardent admirer of contemplative and

imaginative greatness, it is greatness in action and character which

moves the admiration of Ennius. They resemble each other also in their

strong consciousness of genius and their high estimate of its function

and value. Cicero mentions that Ennius applied the epithet _sanctus_

to poets. Lucretius applies the same epithet to the old philosophic

poets, as in the lines of strong affection and reverence which he

dedicates to Empedocles,

Nil tamen hoc habuisse viro praeclarius in se,

Nec _sanctum_ magis, et mirum carumque videtur[17].

The inscription which Ennius composed for his own bust directly

expresses his sense of the greatness of his work, and his confident

assurance of fame, and of the lasting sympathy of his countrymen--

Aspicite, O cives, senis Enni imagini' formam,

Hic vestrum panxit maxima facta patrum.

Nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu

Faxit. Cur? Volito vivu' per ora virum[18].

Two lines from one of his satires--

Enni poeta salve qui mortalibus

Versus propinas flammeos medullitus[19],

indicate in still stronger terms his burning consciousness of power.

Some of the greatest of modern poets, such as Dante, Milton, and

Wordsworth, have manifested a feeling similar to that expressed by

Ennius and Lucretius. Although appearing in strange contrast with the

self-suppression of the highest creative art (as seen in Homer, in

Sophocles, and in Shakspeare), this proud self-confidence, 'disdainful

of help or hindrance,' is the usual accompaniment of an intense nature

and of a genius exercised with some serious moral, religious, or

political purpose. The least pleasing side of the feeling, even in

men of generous nature, is the scorn,--not of envy, but of imperfect

sympathy,--which they are apt to entertain towards rival genius or

antagonistic convictions. Something of this spirit appears in the

disparaging allusion of Ennius to his predecessor Naevius:--

Scripsere alii rem

Versibu', quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant,

Quum neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat

Nec dicti studiosus erat[20].

The contempt here expressed for the metre employed by the older poet

seems to be the counterpart of his own exultation in being the first

to introduce what he called 'the long verses' into Latin literature.

Another point in which there is some affinity between Ennius and

Lucretius is their religious temper and convictions. There is indeed

no trace in Ennius of the rigid intellectual consistency of Lucretius,

nor in Lucretius any sympathy with those mystic speculations which

Ennius derived from the lore attributed to Pythagoras. But in both

deep feelings of awe and reverence are combined with a scornful

disbelief of the superstition of their time. They both apply the

principles of Euhemerism to resolve the bright creations of the old

mythology into their original elements. Ennius, like Lucretius, seems

to deny the providence of the gods. He makes one of the personages of

his dramas give expression to the thought which perplexed the minds

of Thucydides and Tacitus--the thought, namely, of the apparent

disconnexion between prosperity and goodness, as affording proof of

the divine indifference to human well-being--

Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum,

Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus;

Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis, quod nunc abest[21]:

and he exposed, with caustic sense, the false pretences of augurs,

prophets, and astrologers. His translation of the Sacred Chronicle of

Euhemerus exercised a permanent influence on the religious convictions

of his countrymen. But while led to these conclusions by the spirit

of his age, and by the study of the later speculations of Greece, he

believed in the soul's independence of the body, and of its continued

existence, under other conditions, after death. He declared that the

spirit of Homer, after many changes,--at one time having animated a

peacock[22], again, having been incarnate in the sage of Crotona,--had

finally passed into his own body: and he told how the shade--which he

regards as distinct from the soul or spirit--of his great prototype

had appeared to him from the invisible world,--

Quo neque permaneant animae neque corpora nostra

Sed quaedam simulacra modis pallentia miris,

and explained to him the whole plan of nature. These dreams of the

imagination may not have been without effect in enabling Ennius to

escape from the gloom which 'eclipsed the brightness of the world' to

Lucretius. The light in which the world appeared to the older poet was

that of common sense strangely blended with imaginative mysticism.

He thus seems to stand midway between the spiritual aspirations of

Empedocles and the negation of Lucretius. Born in the vigorous prime

of Italian civilisation he came into the inheritance of the bold

fancies of the earlier Greeks and of the dull rationalism of their

later speculation. His ideas on what transcends experience appear thus

to have been without the unity arising from an unreflecting acceptance

of tradition, or from the basis of philosophical consistency.

II. HIS WORKS.--(1) MISCELLANEOUS WORKS.

II. (1) In laying the foundations of Roman literature, Ennius

displayed not only the fervent sympathies and active faculty of

genius, but also great energy and industry, and a many-sided learning.

The composition of his tragedies and of the Annals, while making most

demand on his original gifts, implied also a diligent study of

Homer and of the Greek tragedians, and a large acquaintance with the

traditions and antiquities of Rome. But besides the works on which

his highest poetical faculty was employed, other writings, of a

philosophical, didactic, and miscellaneous character, gave evidence of

the versatility of his powers and interests. It does not appear that

he was the author of any prose writing. His version of the Sacred

Chronicle of Euhemerus was more probably a poetical adaptation than

a literal prose translation of that work. The work of Euhemerus was

conceived in that spirit of vulgar rationalism, which is condemned by

Plato in the Phaedrus. He explained away the fables of mythology,

by representing them as a supernatural account of historical events.

Several extracts of the work quoted by Lactantius, as from the

translation of Ennius, look as if they had been reduced from a form

originally metrical into the prose of a later era[23]. There is thus

no evidence, direct or indirect, to prove that Ennius had any share in

forming the style of Latin prose. But if verse was the sole instrument

which he used, this was certainly not due to the poetical character

of all the topics which he treated, but, more likely, to the fact

that his acquired aptitude, and the state of the Latin language in

his time, made metrical writing more natural and easy than prose

composition.

One of his works in verse was a treatise on good living, called

Hedyphagetica, founded on the gastronomic researches of Archestratus

of Gela,--a sage who is said to have devoted his life to the study of

everything that contributed to the pleasures of the table, and to have

recorded his varied experience and research with the grave dignity of

epic verse. A few lines from this translation or adaptation of Ennius,

giving an account of the coasts on which the best fish are to be

found, have been preserved by Apuleius. The lines are curious as

exemplifying that tone of half-serious enthusiasm, which all who

treat, either in prose or verse, of the pleasures of eating seem

naturally to adopt, as for instance the Catius of Horace in his

discourse on gastronomy[24]. The language in which the _scarus_, a

fish unhappily lost to the modern epicure, is described as 'the brain

almost of almighty Jove,' fits all the requirements of gastronomic

rapture:--

Quid turdum, merulam, melanurum umbramque marinam

Praeterii, atque scarum, cerebrum Jovi' paene supremi?

Nestoris ad patriam hic capitur magnusque bonusque.

He wrote also a philosophical poem in trochaic septenarian verse,

called Epicharmus, founded on writings attributed to the old Sicilian

poet, which appear to have resolved the gods of the Greek mythology

into natural substances[25]. A few slight fragments have been

preserved from this poem. They speak of the four elements or

principles of the universe as 'water, earth, air, the sun'; of 'the

blending of heat with cold, dryness with moisture'; of 'the earth

bearing and supporting all nations and receiving them again back into

herself.' The following is the longest fragment from the poem:--

Istic est is Jupiter quem dico, quem Graeci vocant

Aerem: qui ventus est et nubes; imber postea

Atque ex imbre frigus: ventus post fit, aer denuo,

Haece propter Jupiter sunt ista quae dico tibi,

Quoniam mortalis atque urbes beluasque omnis juvat[26].

These fragments and a passage from the opening lines of the Annals,

where the shade of Homer was introduced as discoursing to Ennius

(like the shade of Anchises to Aeneas), on 'the nature of things,' are

specimens of that vague curiosity about the facts and laws of Nature,

which, in ancient times, supplied the absence of scientific knowledge.

Such physical speculations possessed a great attraction for the

Roman poets. The spirit of the Epicharmus, as well as of the Sacred

Chronicle of Euhemerus, reappears in the poem of Lucretius. Ennius was

the first among his countrymen who expressed that curiosity as to the

ultimate facts of Nature and that sense of the mysterious life of the

universe, which acted as the most powerful intellectual impulse on the

mind of Lucretius, and which fascinated the imagination of Virgil.

Another of his miscellaneous works, probably of a moral and didactic

character, was known by the name of Protreptica. It is possible that

all of these works[27], as well as the Scipio, formed part of the

Saturae, or Miscellanies, under which title Ennius composed four,

or, according to another authority, six books. The Romans looked

upon Lucilius as the inventor of satire in the later sense of that

word[28];--he having been the first to impress upon the satura the

character of censorious criticism, which it has borne since his time.

But there was another kind of satura, of which Ennius and Pacuvius in

early times, and Varro at a somewhat later time, were regarded as the

principal authors. This was really a miscellany treating of various

subjects, in various metres, and, as employed by Varro, was written

partly in prose, partly in verse. This kind of composition, as well

as the Lucilian satire, arose out of the old indigenous satura or

dramatic medley, familiar to the Romans before the introduction of

Greek literature. When the scenic element in the original satura was

superseded by the new comedy introduced from Greece, the old name

was first applied to a miscellaneous kind of composition, in which

ordinary topics were treated in a serious but apparently desultory

way; and even as employed by Lucilius and Horace the satura retained

much of its original character. The satires of Ennius were written

in various metres, iambic, trochaic, and hexameter, and treated of

various topics of personal and public interest. The few passages which

ancient authorities quote as fragments from them are not of much value

in themselves, but when taken in connexion with the testimonies as to

their character, they are of some interest as showing that this kind

of composition was a form intermediate between the old dramatic satura

and the satire of Lucilius and Horace. It is recorded that in one

of these pieces, Ennius introduced a dialogue between Life and

Death;--thus transmitting in the use of dialogue (which appears very

frequently in Horace and Persius) some vestige of the original

scenic medley. Ennius also appears, like Lucilius and Horace, to have

communicated in his satires his own personal feelings and experience,

as in the fragment already quoted:--

Nunquam poetor, nisi si podager.

Further satire, in the hands of its chief masters, aimed at practical

moral teaching, not only by precept, ridicule, and invective, and

by portraiture of individuals and of types, but also by the use of

anecdotes and fables. This last mode of inculcating homely lessons on

the conduct of life is common in Horace. It appears, however, to have

been first used by Ennius. Aulus Gellius mentions that Aesop's fable

of the field-lark and the husbandman 'is very skilfully and gracefully

told by Ennius in his satires'; and he quotes the advice appended to

the fable, 'Never to expect your friends to do for you what you can do

for yourself':

Hoc erit tibi argumentum semper in promptu situm:

Nequid expectes amicos, quod tute agere possies[29].

These miscellaneous works of Ennius were the fruits of his learning

and literary industry, rather than of his genius. Such works might

have been written in prose, if the art of prose composition had been

as familiar as that of verse. It is in the fragments of his dramas,

and still more of the Annals, that his poetic power is most apparent,

and that the influence which he exercised over the Roman mind and

literature is discerned.

(2) DRAMAS.

(2) Before the time of Ennius, the Roman drama, both tragic and comic,

had established itself at Rome, in close imitation of the tragedy

and the new comedy of Athens. The latter had been most successfully

cultivated by Naevius and his younger contemporary, Plautus. The

advancement of tragedy to an equal share of popular favour was due to

the severer genius of Ennius. He appears however to have tried, though

without much success, to adapt himself to the popular taste in favour

of comedy. The names of two of his comedies, viz. _Cupuncula_ and

_Pancratiastae_, have come down to us; but their fragments are too

insignificant to justify the formation of any opinion on their merits.

His admirers in ancient times nowhere advance in his favour any claim

to comic genius. Volcatius Sedigitus, an early critic, who wrote a

work _De Poetis_, and who has already been referred to as assigning

the third rank in the list of comic poets to Naevius, mentions Ennius

as tenth and last, solely 'antiquitatis causa.' Any inference that

might be drawn from the character exhibited in the other fragments of

Ennius, would accord both with the negative and positive evidence

of antiquity, as to his deficiency in comic power. He has nothing in

common with that versatile and dramatic genius, in which occasionally

the highest imagination has been united with the most abundant humour.

The real bent of his mind, as revealed in his higher poetry, is grave

and intense, like that of Lucretius or Milton. Many of the conceits,

strained effects, and play on words, found in his fragments, imply

want of humour as well as an imperfect poetic taste. Thus, in the

following fragment from one of his satires, the meaning of the passage

is more obscured than pointed by the forced iteration and play upon

the word _frustra_:--

Nam qui lepide postulat alterum frustrari,

Quom frustrast, frustra illum dicit frustra esse.

Nam qui se frustrari quem frustra sentit,

Qui frustratur frustrast, si ille non est frustra[30].

The love of alliteration and assonance, which is conspicuous also in

Plautus and in the fragments of Pacuvius and Accius, and which seems

to have been the natural accompaniment of the new formative energy

imparted to the Latin language by the earliest poets and orators,

appears in its most exaggerated form in such lines as the

O Tite tute Tati tibi tanta tiranne tulisti,

quoted from the Annals. Many of his fragments show indeed that he

possessed the caustic spirit of a satirist; but it was in the light

of common sense, not of humour, that he regarded the follies of the

world.

The general character of Roman tragedy, so far as it can be

ascertained from ancient testimony and the extant fragments of the

early tragedians, will be examined in the following chapter. It is not

possible to determine what dramatic power Ennius may have displayed in

the evolution of his plots or the delineation of his characters. His

peculiar genius is more distinctly stamped on his epic than on his

dramatic fragments. Still many of the latter, in their boldness of

conception and expression, and in their strong and fervid morality,

are expressive of the original force of the poet, and of the Roman

temper of his mind. Some of them will be brought forward in

the sequel, along with passages from the Annals, as important

contributions to our estimate of the poet's genius and intellect.

It was certainly due to Ennius that Roman tragedy was first raised to

that pitch of popular favour which it enjoyed till the age of Cicero.

While actively employed in many other fields of literature, he carried

on the composition of his tragedies till the latest period of his

life. Cicero records that the _Thyestes_ was represented at the

celebration of the Ludi Apollinares, shortly before the poet's

death[31]. The titles of about twenty-five of his tragedies are known,

and a few fragments remain from all of them. About one half of these

bear the titles of the heroes and heroines connected with the Trojan

cycle of events, such as the _Achilles_, _Achilles Aristarchi_,

_Ajax_, _Alexander_, _Andromache Aechmalotis_, _Hectoris Lutra_,

_Hecuba_, _Iphigenia_, _Phoenix_, _Telamo_. One at least of his

tragedies, the _Medea_, was literally translated from the Greek of

Euripides, whom he seems to have made his model, in preference to

the older Attic dramatists. Cicero[32] speaks of it, along with the

Antiope of Pacuvius, as being translated word for word from the Greek;

and a comparison of the fragments of the Latin with the passages in

the Medea of Euripides shows how closely Ennius followed his original.

In one place he has mistranslated his author,--the passage (Eur. Med.

215),

[Greek:

oida gar pollous broton

semnous gegotas, tous men ommaton apo

tous d' en thyraiois],

being thus rendered in Latin,--

Multi suam rem bene gessere et publicam patria procul.

The opening lines of the Medea of Ennius may be quoted as probably a

fair specimen of the degree of faithfulness with which the early Roman

tragedians translated from their originals. There is some nervous

force, but little either of poetical grace or musical flow in the

language:--

Utinam ne in nemore Pelio securibus

Caesa cecidisset abiegna ad terram trabes,

Neve inde navis inchoandae exordium

Coepisset, quae nunc nominatur nomine

Argo, quia Argivi in ea dilecti viri

Vecti petebant pellem inauratam arietis

Colchis, imperio regis Peliae, per dolum;

Nam nunquam era errans mea domo ecferret pedem

Medea, animo aegra, amore saevo saucia[33].

In his Hecuba, also, and probably in his Iphigenia, Ennius made free

use of the dramas founded on the same subjects by Euripides. But in

many of his dramatic fragments the sentiment expressed is clearly

that of a Roman, not of a Greek mind[34]. The subjects of many of

his dramas, such as the Achilles, the Ajax, the Hectoris Lutra, the

Telamon, the Iphigenia, afforded scope for the exhibition of the

soldierly character. Cicero[35] adduces the wounded Eurypylus as an

example of the kind of fortitude and superiority to pain produced by

the discipline of the Roman armies. The same author quotes with

great admiration scenes from the Alexander and from the Andromache

Aechmalotis, in which pathos is the predominant sentiment. He adds to

his quotations the comments 'O poema tenerum, et moratum, et molle';

and again, 'O poetam egregium, quamquam ab his cantoribus Euphorionis

contemnitur! Sentit omnia repentina et necopinata esse graviora ...

praeclarum carmen est enim et rebus et verbis et modis lugubre[36].'

In the former of these scenes Cassandra, under the influence of

Apollo, reluctant and _ashamed_ (perhaps in this feeling the hand of a

Roman rather than of a Greek poet may be recognised), yet mastered by

prophetic fury, bursts forth in these wild, agitated tones:--

Adest, adest fax obvoluta sanguine atque incendio:

Multos annos latuit: cives ferte opem et restinguite.

Iamque mari magno classis cita

Texitur: exitium examen rapit.

Advenit, et fera velivolantibus

Navibus complevit manus litora[37].

We see in this passage how the passionate character of the situation

is enhanced by the mysterious power attributed to Cassandra. A similar

excitement of feeling, produced by supernatural terror, appears in a

fragment of the Alcmaeon, quoted also by Cicero, and of another the

motive is the awe associated with the dim and pale realms of

the dead[38]. In these and similar passages we note the power of

expressing the varying moods of passion by varied effects of metre.

Horace characterises his ordinary verse in the line,

In scaenam missos cum magno pondere versus;

and this slow and weighty movement seems to have been the general

character of his metre in the calmer parts of his dramas. But in a

large number of the fragments of the dialogue, where there is any

excitement of feeling or intensity of thought, we find him using

the more rapid trochaic septenarian, with quick transitions to the

anapaestic dimeter, or tetrameter, as the passion passes beyond the

control of the speaker.

In two of his dramas, the Sabinae and Ambracia, he made use of

materials supplied by the early legendary history of Rome, and by

a great contemporary event. The first of these, like the Romulus of

Naevius, belonged to the class of 'fabulae Praetextatae,' and was

founded on the intervention of the Sabine women in the war between

Romulus and Tatius. The second, representing the capture of the town

of Ambracia, in the Aetolian war, may, like the Clastidium of the

older poet (written in celebration of the victory of Marcellus over

the Gauls), have had more of the character of a military pageant

and, in all probability, was composed for representation at the games

celebrated on the triumphal return of M. Fulvius Nobilior from that

war.

(3) THE ANNALS.

(3) But the poem which was the chief result of his life, and made an

epoch in Latin literature, was the Annals. On the composition of this

work he rested his hopes of popular and permanent fame--

Hic vestrum panxit maxima facta patrum:

and again, apparently at the opening of the poem, he wrote,--

Latos per populos terrasque poemata nostra

Clara cluebunt.

At its conclusion, he claimed for his old age the repose due to a

brave and triumphant career. He composed the eighteenth book, the

last, in his sixty-seventh year, three years before his death[39].

The great length to which the poem extended, and the vast amount of

materials which it embraced, imply a long and steady concentration of

his powers on the task. It was one requiring much learning as well

as original conception. The fragments of the poem afford proofs of a

familiarity with Homer, and of acquaintance with the Cyclic poets[40].

It is impossible to say how much of the early Roman history, as it

has come down to modern times, is due to the diligence of Ennius in

collecting, and to his genius in giving life to the traditions and

ancient records of Rome. He was certainly the earliest writer who

gathered them up, and united them in a continuous narrative. The work

accomplished by him required not only the antiquarian lore of a man

Multa tenens, antiqua, sepulta,

and the power of imagination to give a new shape to the past, but an

intimate knowledge of the great events and the great men of his own

time, and a strong sympathy with the best spirit of his age.

The poem was written in eighteen books. Of these books about six

hundred lines have been preserved in fragments, varying from about

twenty lines to half a line in length. From the minuteness with which

comparatively unimportant matters are described, it is inferred that

the separate books extended to a much greater length than those either

of the Iliad or of the Aeneid. Of the first book there remain about

120 lines, including the dream of Ilia in seventeen lines, and the

auspices of Romulus in twenty lines. In it were narrated the mythical

events from the time

Quum veter occubuit Priamus sub marte Pelasgo,

to the death and deification of Romulus;

Romulus in caelo cum dis genitalibus aevum

Degit.

There is no allusion in these fragments to the Carthaginian adventures

of Aeneas, which Naevius had introduced into his poem on the First

Punic War. Aeneas seems at once to have been brought to Hesperia, a

land,

Quam prisci casci populi tenuere Latini.

Ilia is represented as the daughter of Aeneas. The birth and infancy

of Romulus and Remus appear to have been described at great length. In

commenting on Virgil's lines at Aeneid viii. 630--

Fecerat et viridi fetam Mavortis in antro

Procubuisse lupam: geminos huic ubera circum

Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem

Impavidos; illam tereti cervice reflexam

Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua,--

Servius says 'Sane totus hic locus Ennianus est.' The second and

third books contained the history of the remaining Roman kings. Virgil

imitated the description given in these books of the destruction of

Alba (the story of which is told by Livy also with much poetic power,

perhaps reproduced from the pages of Ennius), in his account of the

capture of Troy, at Aeneid ii. 486--

At domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu, etc.

One short fragment of the third book contains a picturesque notice of

the founding of Ostia--

Ostia munita est; idem loca navibu' pulchris

Munda facit; nautisque mari quaesentibu' vitam.

This line also

Postquam lumina sis oculis bonus Ancu' reliquit

is familiar from its reappearance in one of the most impressive

passages of Lucretius.

The fourth and fifth books contained the history of the State from the

establishment of the Republic till just before the beginning of the

war with Pyrrhus. One short fragment is taken from the night attack of

the Gauls upon the Capitol. The sixth book was devoted to the war with

Pyrrhus; the seventh, eighth, and ninth, to the First and Second

Punic Wars. In the fragments of the sixth are found a few lines of the

speeches of Pyrrhus, and of Appius Claudius Caecus. In the account of

the First Punic War, the disparaging allusion to Naevius occurs--

Scripsere alii rem, etc.

It is mentioned by Cicero that Ennius borrowed much from the work of

Naevius; and also that he passed over (_reliquisse_) the First Punic

War, as it had been treated by his predecessor. Several fragments

however must certainly refer to this war; but it is probable that that

part of the subject was treated more cursorily than either the war

with Pyrrhus, or the later wars. The passage in which the poet is

supposed to have painted his own character, under the form of a friend

of Servilius Geminus, occurred in the seventh book. Two well-known

passages have been preserved from the ninth book--viz. that

characterising the 'sweet-speaking' orator, M. Cornelius Cethegus--

Flos delibatus populi suadaeque medulla,

and the lines in honour of Q. Fabius Maximus,

Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem, etc.

The tenth and eleventh books, beginning with a new invocation to the

muse--

Insece Musa manu Romanorum induperator

Quod quisque in bello gessit cum rege Philippo,

treated of the Macedonian war, and of the deeds of T. Quintius

Flamininus. In the later books, Ennius told the history of the war

with Antiochus, of the Aetolian War carried on by his friend, M.

Fulvius Nobilior, of the exploits of L. Caecilius Denter and his

brother (of whom scarcely anything is known except that the sixteenth

book of the Annals was written in consequence of the poet's especial

admiration for them), and lastly, of the Istrian War, which took place

within a few years of the author's death.

Neither in general design nor in detail could the Annals be regarded

as a pure epic poem. Like the Aeneid, which connects the mythical

story of Aeneas with the glories of the Julian line and the great

destiny of Rome, the poem of Ennius treated of fabulous tradition,

of historical fact, and of great contemporary events; but it did not,

like the Aeneid, unite these varied materials in the representation of

the fortunes of one individual hero. The action of the poem,

instead of being limited to a few days or months, extended over

many generations. Nor could the poem terminate with any critical

catastrophe, as its object was to unfold the continuous, still

advancing progress of the State. From the name it might be inferred

that the Annals must have been more like a metrical chronicle than

like an epic poem; yet, as being inspired and pervaded by a grand and

vital idea, the work was elevated above the level of matter of fact

into the region of poetry. The idea of a high destiny, unfolding

itself under the old kingly dynasty and the long line of

consuls,--through the successive wars with the Italian races, with

Pyrrhus and the Carthaginians,--rapidly advancing, though not fully

accomplished in the age when the poem was written,--gave unity of plan

and consistency of form to its rude and colossal structure. The word

Annales, as applied to Roman story, suggests something more than the

mere record of events in regular annual sequence. It involves also

the idea of unbroken continuity. In the Roman Republic, the unity

and vital action of the State were maintained and manifested by the

delegation of the functions of government on magistrates appointed

from year to year, just as the life of a monarchical state is

maintained and manifested in its line of kings. In the spirit

animating the work,--in the conception of a past history, stretching

back in unbroken grandeur until it is lost in fable, but yet vitally

linked to the interests of the present time,--the Annals of Ennius may

be compared with the dramas in which Shakspeare has represented the

national life of England--in all its greatness and vicissitudes--with

the glory and splendour as well as the dark and tragic colours with

which that story is inwoven.

The poem, although laying no claim to the perfection of epic form, had

thus something of the genuine epic inspiration. While treating both

of a mythical past and of real historical events, it was pervaded by a

living and popular idea,--faith in the destiny of Rome. It was through

the power and presence of that same idea in his own age, that

Virgil was able to impart a vital and enduring meaning to a fabulous

tradition, and to create, out of the imaginary fortunes of a Trojan

hero, a poem most truly representative of his age and country. It is

the absence of any such living idea which renders the artificial

epics of refined and civilised eras,--such poems, for instance, as the

_Thebais_ of Statius, or the _Argonautics_ of Valerius Flaccus,--in

general so flat and unprofitable. Regarded, on the other hand, as

a historical poem, the Annals was written under more favourable

conditions than the _Pharsalia_ of Lucan, or the _Punic Wars_ of

Silius Italicus--in being the work of an age to which the past

had come down as popular tradition, not as recorded history. The

imagination of the poet employs itself more happily and legitimately

in filling up or modifying a story that has been shaped by the fancies

and feelings of successive generations, than in venturing to recast

the facts that stand out prominently in the actual march of human

affairs. By treating of contemporary events, the poem must have

receded still further from the pure type of epic poetry; yet the later

fragments of the work, while written with something of the minute

and literal fidelity of a chronicle, may yet lay claim to poetic

inspiration. They prove that the author was no unconcerned spectator

and reporter of the events going on around him, but that his

imagination was fired and his sympathies keenly interested by

whatever, in speech or action, was worthy to live in the memory of the

world.

There must have been many drawbacks to the popularity of the poem in

a more critical time, when strong enthusiasm and forcible conception

fail to interest, unless they are combined with the harmonious

execution of a work of art. Even from the extant fragments the

rude proportions and the unwieldy mass of the original work may be

inferred. It is still possible to note the bare, annalistic style

of many passages which sink below the level of dignified prose, the

barbarisms of taste shown by a fondness for alliterative lines

and plays upon words, the more common faults of careless haste and

redundance of expression, and of a rugged and irregular cadence. There

must have been some peculiar excellences or adaptation to the Roman

taste, through which, in spite of these defects, the popularity of

the poem was sustained far into the times of the Empire. This

late popularity may have been due in part to antiquarian zeal or

affectation, but some degree of it, as well as the favour of the

age in which the poem was written, must have been founded on more

substantial grounds. Apart from other literary interest, this poem

first drew forth and established, for the contemplation of after

times, the ideal latent in the national mind. The patriotic tones of

Virgil have the same kind of ring as these in the older poet--

Audire est operae pretium procedere recte

Qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere vultis,

and this other line which Cicero compared to the utterance of an

oracle--

Moribus antiquis stat res Romana virisque.

While in his other works Ennius was the teacher of an alien culture to

his countrymen, in his Annals he represented them. He set before them

an image of what was most real in themselves;--an image combining

the strength and commanding features of his own time, with the proud

memories and traditional traits of the past. As it is by sympathy with

what is most vital and of deepest meaning in actual experience that a

great poet forms his ideal of what transcends experience, so it is by

a vivid apprehension of the present that he is able to re-animate the

past. Dante and Milton gained their vision of other worlds through

their intense feeling of the spiritual meaning of this life; and, in

another sphere of art, Scott was enabled to immortalise the romance

and humour of past ages, partly through the chivalrous and adventurous

spirit which he inherited from them, partly through the strong

interest and enjoyment with which he entered into the actual life and

pursuits of his contemporaries. It is in ages of transition, such as

were the ages of Sophocles, of Shakspeare, and of Scott, in which the

traditions of the past seem to blend with and colour the activity and

enjoyment of a new time of great issues, that representative works of

genius are produced. Living in such an era, deeply moved by all

the memories, the hopes, and the impulses which acted upon his

contemporaries, living his own life happily and vigorously in the

chief centre of the world's activity, Ennius was enabled to gather the

life of centuries into one representation, and to tell the story

of Rome, if without the accomplished art, yet with something of

the native force and spirit of early Greece; to fix in language

the patriotic traditions which had hitherto been kept alive by the

statues, monuments, and commemorative ceremonies of earlier times; to

uphold the standard of national character with a fervent enthusiasm;

and to address the understanding of his contemporaries with a

practical wisdom like their own, and a large knowledge both of 'books

and men':--

Vetustas

Quem fecit mores veteresque novosque tenentem.

The manifest defects, as well as the peculiar power of the poem, show

how widely it departed from the standard of the Greek epic which it

professed to imitate. Its vast dimensions and solid structure are

proofs of that capacity of long labour and concentrated interest

on one great object, which was the secret of Roman success in other

spheres of action. So large a mass of materials held in union only by

a pervading national enthusiasm would have been utterly repugnant

to Greek taste, intolerant above all things of monotony, and most

exacting in its demands of artistic unity and completeness. The

fragments of the poem give no idea of careful finish; they produce

the impression of massiveness and energy, strength and uniformity of

structure, unaccompanied by beauty, grace, or symmetry. The creation

of an untutored age may be recognised in the rudeness of design,--of

a Roman mind in the national spirit, the colossal proportions, and the

strong workmanship of the poem.

The originality of the Roman epic will be still more apparent if we

compare the fragments of the Annals, in some points of detail, with

the complete works of the poet, whom Ennius regarded as his prototype.

There was, in the first place, a marked difference between Homer

and the Roman poet in their modes of representing human life and

character. The personages of the Iliad and of the Odyssey are living

and forcible types of individual character. In Achilles, in Hector,

and in Odysseus,--in Helen, Andromache, and Nausicaa, we recognise

embodiments the most real, yet the most transcendent, of the grandeur,

the heroism, the courage, and strong affection of manhood, and of the

grace, the gentleness, and the sweet vivacity of woman. The work of

Ennius, on the other hand, instead of presenting varied types of human

nature, appears to have unfolded a long gallery of national portraits.

The fragments of the poem still afford glimpses of the 'good Ancus';

'of the man of the great heart, the wise Aelius Sextus'; 'of the sweet

speaking orator,' Cethegus, 'the marrow of persuasion.' The stamp of

magnanimous fortitude is impressed on the fragmentary words of Appius

Claudius Caecus; and sagacity and resolution are depicted in the lines

which have handed down the fame of Fabius Maximus. This idea of the

poem, as unfolding the heroes of Roman story in regular series, may be

gathered also from the language of Cicero: 'Cato, the ancestor of our

present Cato, is extolled by him to the skies; the honour of the

Roman people is thereby enhanced: finally all those Maximi,

Fulvii, Marcelli, are celebrated with a glory in which we all

participate[41].' This portraiture of the kings and heroes of the

early time, of the orators, soldiers, and statesmen of the Republic,

could not have exhibited the variety, the energy, the passion, and all

the complex human attributes of Homer's personages. The men who stand

prominently out in the annals of Rome were of a more uniform type.

They were men of one common aim,--the advancement of Rome; animated

with one sentiment,--devotion to the State. All that was purely

personal in them seems merged in the traditional pictures which

express only the fortitude, dignity, and sagacity of the Republic.

Ennius also followed Homer in introducing the element of supernatural

agency into his poem. The action of the Annals, as well as of the

Iliad, was made partially dependent on a divine interference with

human affairs, though exercised less directly, and, as it were, from

a greater distance. Yet how great is the difference between the

life-like representation of the eager, capricious, and passionate

deities of Homer's Olympus and that outline which may still be traced

in Ennius, and which is seen filled up in Virgil and Horace, of the

gods assembled, like a grave council of state, to deliberate on the

destiny of Rome. In one fragment, containing the familiar line,--

Unus erit quem tu tolles in caerula caeli

Templa,--

they are introduced as debating, 'tectis bipatentibus,' on the

admission of Romulus into heaven. Again, in the account of the Second

Punic War, Jupiter is introduced as promising to the Romans the

destruction of Carthage; and Juno abandons her resentment against the

descendants of the Trojans,--

Romanis coepit Juno placata favere.

It may be remarked, as a strong proof of the hold which their

mythology had on the minds of the ancients, that men so sincere as

Ennius and Lucretius, while openly expressing opposition to that

system of religious belief, cannot separate themselves from its

influence and associations in their poetry. But it is not to be

supposed that Ennius, in the passages just referred to, was merely

using an artificial machinery to which he attached no meaning. In this

representation of the councils of the gods, he embodies that faith

in the Roman destiny, which was at the root of the most serious

convictions of the Romans, in the most sceptical as well as the most

believing ages of their history. This, too, is the real belief, which

gives meaning to the supernatural agency in the Aeneid. Aeneas is

an instrument in the hands of Fate; Jupiter merely foreknows and

pronounces its decrees; the parts assigned to Juno and Venus, in

thwarting and advancing these decrees, seem to be an artistic

addition to this original conception, suggested perhaps as much by the

experience of female influence and intrigue in the poet's own age as

by the memories of the Iliad.

Homer makes his personages known to us in speech as well as in action.

Among epic poets he alone possessed the finest dramatic genius. But

over and above the natural dialogue or soliloquy, in which every

feeling of his various personages is revealed, he has invested his

heroes with the charm of fluent and powerful oratory, in the council

of chiefs and before the assembled people. The words of his speakers

pour on, as he says of the words of Odysseus,--

[Greek: niphadessin eoikota cheimeriesi],

in the rapid vehemence of passion or the subtle fluency of persuasion.

The fragments of Ennius, on the other hand, scarcely afford sufficient

ground for attributing to him a genuine dramatic faculty. But, as the

citizen of a republic in which action was first matured in council,

and living in the age when public speech first became a recognised

power in the State, it was incumbent on him to embody in 'his abstract

and chronicle of the time' the speech of the orator no less than the

achievement of the soldier. In his estimate of character this power of

speech is honoured as the fitting accompaniment of the wisdom of

the statesman. In the following lines, for instance, he laments the

substitution of military for civil preponderance in public affairs.

Pellitur e medio sapientia, vi geritur res:

Spernitur orator bonus, horridu' miles amatur:

Haut doctis dictis certantes, sed maledictis

Miscent inter sese inimicitiam agitantes;

Non ex jure manu consertum, sed magi' ferro

Rem repetunt, regnumque petunt, vadunt solida vi[42].

Many lines of the Annals are evidently fragments of speeches. The most

remarkable of these passages is one from a speech of Pyrrhus, and

is characterised by Cicero as expressing 'sentiments truly regal

and worthy of the race of the Aeacidae[43].' This fragment, although

evincing nothing of the fluency, the passion, or the argumentative

subtlety of debate, yet suggests the power of a great orator by its

grave authoritative appeal to the moral dignity of man:--

Nec mi aurum posco, nec mi pretium dederitis:

Non cauponantes bellum, sed belligerantes,

Ferro non auro vitam cernamus utrique.

Vosne velit an me regnare era quidve ferat Fors,

Virtute experiamur. Et hoc simul accipe dictum:

Quorum virtutei belli fortuna pepercit,

Eorundem libertati me parcere certum est.

Dono ducite, doque volentibu' cum magnis dis[44].

Of the same severe and lofty tone is that appeal of Appius Claudius,

blind and in extreme old age, to the Senate, when wavering in its

resolution, and inclined to make peace with Pyrrhus:--

Quo vobis mentes rectae quae stare solebant

Antehac, dementes sese flexere viai[45]?

As Milton, in his representation of the great debate in Pandemonium,

idealised and glorified the stately and serious speech of his own

time, so Ennius, in his graphic delineation of the age in which he

lived, gave expression to that high magnanimous mood in accordance

with which the acts of Roman statesmen were assailed or vindicated,

and the policy of the State was shaped before Senate and people--

indu foro lato sanctoque senatu.

The great poets of human action and passion are for the most part to

be ranked among the great poets of the outward world. If they do not

seem to have penetrated with so much personal sympathy into the inner

secret of the life of Nature, as the great contemplative poets of

ancient and modern times, yet they show, in different ways, that their

sense and imagination were powerfully affected both by her outward

beauty and by her manifold energy. Homer, not so much by direct

description of the scenes in which the action of his poems is laid, as

by many indirect touches, by vivid imagery and picturesque epithets,

reveals the openness of his mind to every impression from the outward

world, and the fresh delight with which his imagination reproduced the

impressions immediately received from the 'world of eye and ear.' If

he has left any personal characteristic stamped upon his poetry, it is

the trace of adventure and keen enjoyment in the open air, among the

most stirring sights and sounds and forces of Nature. The imagery of

Virgil is of a more peaceful cast. It seems rather to be 'the harvest

of a quiet eye,' gathered in the conscious contemplation of rural

beauty, and stored up for after use along with the products of his

study and meditation. The fragments of Ennius, on the other hand,

afford few indications either of active toil and unconscious enjoyment

among the solitudes of Nature, or of the luxurious and pensive

susceptibility to beauty by which the poetry of Virgil is pervaded.

He was the poet, not of the woods and rivers, but, essentially, of the

city and the camp. No sentiment could appear less appropriate to him

than that of Virgil's modest prayer,--

Flumina amem silvasque inglorius.

Yet both in his illustrative imagery and in his narrative, he

occasionally reproduces with lively force, if not with much poetical

ornament, some aspects of the outward world, as well as many real

scenes from the world of action.

His imagery is sometimes borrowed from that of Homer; as, for

instance, the following simile, which is also imitated by Virgil:--

Et tum sic ut equus, qui de praesepibu' fartus,

Vincla suis magnis animis abrupit, et inde

Fert sese campi per caerula laetaque prata

Celso pectore, saepe jubam quassat simul altam,

Spiritus ex anima calida spumas agit albas[46].

Other illustrations are taken from circumstances likely to have

been familiar to the men of his own time, but without any apparent

intention of adding poetical beauty to the object he is representing.

Thus the silent expectation with which the assembled people watch the

rival auspices of Romulus and Remus is brought before the mind by an

illustration suggested by, and suggestive of, the passionate eagerness

with which the public games were witnessed by the Romans of his own

age:--

Expectant vel uti consul cum mittere signum

Volt, omnes avidi spectant ad carceris oras,

Quam mox emittat pictis e faucibu' currus[47].

There may be noticed also, in fragments of the narrative, occasional

expressions and descriptive touches implying some sense of what is

sublime or picturesque in the familiar aspects of the outward world.

The sky, with its starry host, is poetically presented in that

expression, which has been adopted by Virgil, 'stellis ingentibus

aptum'; and in the following line,

Vertitur interea caelum cum ingentibu' signis.

In the description of the auspices of Romulus, the scene is

enlivened by this vivid flash, 'simul aureus exoritur Sol,' following

instantaneously upon the appearance of the first bird of omen. A

lively sense of natural scenery is implied in these lines from the

dream of Ilia--

Nam me visus homo pulcher per amoena salicta

Et ripas raptare locosque novos;

in this description of a river, afterwards imitated both by Lucretius

and Virgil--

Quod per amoenam urbem leni fluit agmine flumen;

and in these lines which recall a familiar passage in the Aeneid:--

Jupiter hic risit tempestatesque serenae

Riserunt omnes risu Jovis omnipotentis.[48]

The rhythm and the diction of these fragments suggest another point

of contrast between the father of Greek and the father of Roman

literature. For the old Saturnian verse of the Fauns and Bards, which

had been employed by Livius Andronicus and Naevius, Ennius substituted

the heroic hexameter, which he moulded to the use of Roman poetry,

with little art and grace, but with much energy and weight. As he

imitated the metre of Homer, he has in several places (as in a simile

already quoted, and again in describing the conduct of a brave tribune

in the Istrian war), attempted to reproduce his language. Nothing,

however, can show more clearly the vast original difference between

the genius of Greece and of Rome than the contrast presented between

the rhythm and style of their earliest epic poets. In regard for law

and civil order, in military and political organisation, in practical

power of understanding, and in the command which that power gave them

over the world, the Romans of the second century B.C. had made a great

and permanent advance beyond the Greeks of the time of Homer. But the

Greeks, when they first become known to us, appear in possession of

a gift to which all later generations have been unable to attain. The

genius of poetry has never, since the time of Homer, appeared in union

with a faculty of expression so true and spontaneous, so faultless in

purity, so inexhaustible in resources. It is difficult to imagine a

greater contrast than that between the varied and harmonious power

of the earliest Greek epic, and the rugged rhythm and diction of

the Annals. Yet the very rudeness of that work is significant of

the energy of a man who had to accomplish a gigantic task by his own

unaided efforts. His ear had not been passively trained by the musical

echoes transmitted by earlier minstrels; nor did he inherit the

fluency and richness of expression which a long line of poets hands on

to their successors. While professing to imitate the structure of the

Homeric verse, he was unable to seize its finer cadences. Nor had

he learned the stricter conditions under which that metre could be

adapted to the powerful and weighty movement of the Latin language.

If he did much to establish Latin prosody on principles deviating

considerably from those observed by the contemporary comic poets,

yet many points which were regulated unalterably for Virgil were

left quite unsettled by Ennius. There are found occasionally in these

fragments lines without any _caesura_ before the fifth foot, as the

following, in one of the longest and least imperfect of his remains--

Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem stabilibat.

and this in a passage in which the sound seems intended to imitate the

sense--

Poste recumbite vestraque pectora pellite tonsis.

And though such marked violations of harmony are rare, yet there is a

large proportion of lines in which the laws for the caesura observed

by later poets are violated. Again, while the final 's' is in most

cases not sounded before a word beginning with a consonant (a usage

which finally disappears only in the Augustan poets) the final 'm,' on

the other hand, is sometimes left without elision before a vowel, as

in the following line--

Miscent inter sese inimicitiam agitantes.

The quantity of syllables and the inflexions of words were so far

unsettled, that such lines as the following are read,

Partem fuisset de summis rebu' regendis;

and this,

Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem;

and

Volturus in spinis miserum mandebat homonem.

Among the ruder characteristics of his diction, his use of prosaic and

technical terms is especially to be noticed. The following lines, for

instance, read more like the bare statement of a chronicle, or of a

legal document, than an extract from a poetical narrative:--

Cives Romani tunc facti sunt Campani;

and this

Appius indixit Karthaginiensibu' bellum;

and these lines enumerating the various priesthoods established by

Numa,--

Volturnalem Palatualem Furrinalem

Floralemque Falacrem et Pomonalem fecit

Hic idem.

Yet, in spite of these imperfections, both his rhythm and language

produce the impression of power and originality. With all the

roughness and irregularity of his measure, and notwithstanding the

inharmonious structure of continuous passages, his lines often have a

weighty and impressive effect, like that produced by some of the great

passages in Lucretius and Virgil. It is said of the rhetorician Aelian

that he excessively admired in Ennius both 'the greatness of his

mind and the grandeur of his metre[49].' Something of this sonorous

grandeur may be recognised in a fragment descriptive of the havoc made

by woodcutters in a great forest,--a passage in which the language of

Ennius again appears as a connecting link between that of Homer and of

Virgil:--

Incedunt arbusta per alta, securibu' caedunt,

Percellunt magnas quercus, exciditur ilex,

Fraxinu' frangitur, atque abies consternitur alta.

Pinus proceras pervortunt: omne sonabat

Arbustum fremitu siluai frondosai[50].

In the longest consecutive passages,--the dream of Ilia, the auspices

of Romulus, and that from book seventh, already quoted as illustrative

of the poet's character,--there is, notwithstanding the roughness of

the lines, something also of Homeric rapidity;--a quality which the

Latin hexameter never afterwards attained in elevated poetry.

The diction also of the Annals is generally fresh and forcible,

sometimes vividly imaginative. But perhaps the most admirable quality

of its style is a grave simplicity and sincerity of tone. Especially

is this the case in passages expressing appreciation of strength and

grandeur of character, as in those fragments from the speeches of

Pyrrhus and of Appius Claudius Caecus, already quoted, and in the

famous lines commemorative of the resolute character and momentous

services of Fabius Maximus:--

Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem:

Noenum rumores ponebat ante salutem:

Ergo plusque magisque viri nunc gloria claret[51].

These lines leave on the mind the same impression of antique

majesty, as is produced by the unadorned record of character and work

accomplished inscribed on the tombs of the Scipios.

This truly Roman quality of style, depending on a strong imaginative

sense of reality, is one of the great elements of power in the

language of Lucretius.

III. CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS GENIUS AND INTELLECT.

III.--From a review of the extant fragments both of the Tragedies and

the Annals of Ennius, it appears that his prominent place in Roman

literature, and influence over his countrymen, were due much more to

a great productiveness and activity, and to an original force of mind

and character, than to any artistic skill displayed in the conception

or execution of his works. A consideration of the spirit and purpose

of his greatest works has led to the conclusion that they were, in a

considerable measure, inspired by the genius of Rome, and were thus

rather the starting-point of a new literature than the mechanical

reproduction of the literature of the Greeks. It remains to consider

what inference may be formed from these fragments as to the character

of his genius, of his imaginative sentiment and moral sympathies, and

of his intellectual power.

The force of many single expressions in these fragments, and the power

with which various incidents, situations, and characters, are brought

before the mind indicate an active imagination. A sense of energy and

life-like movement is the prevailing impression produced by a study

of the language and the longer passages in these remains. Many single

lines and expressions that have been gathered accidentally, as mere

isolated phrases, disjoined from the context in which they originally

occurred, bear traces of the ardour with which they were cast into

shape. In longer passages, the whole heart, sense, and understanding

of the writer seem to be thrown into his narrative. He has not the

eye of a poetic artist who observes, as it were, from a distance,

and fixes as in a picture, some phase of passionate feeling or some

beautiful aspect of repose. He suggests rather the idea of a man of

practical energy, who has been present and taken part in the action

described, who enters with living interest into every detail, and

watches it at the same time with a sagacious discernment and a strong

enthusiasm. His power as a narrative poet is the power of forcibly

reproducing the outward movement and the inward meaning of an action,

and of identifying himself with the hearts and minds of the actors on

the scene. Several passages, wanting altogether in poetical beauty,

yet arrest the attention by this energy and realism of conception;

as, for example, this short and rugged fragment, descriptive of

a commander in the crisis of a battle (probably that of

Cynoscephalae),--

Aspectabat virtutem legioni' suai,

Expectans, si mussaret, quae denique pausa

Pugnandi fieret, aut duri fini' laboris[52].

Even in the abrupt dislocation from their context these lines leave on

the mind an impression of the calm vigilance of a general, and of his

confidence, not unmixed with anxiety, in 'the long-enduring hearts' of

his men. The same truth and energy of conception, with more poetical

accompaniment, may be recognised in the longer passages, from Book

vii. and Book i., already quoted or referred to.

But the imaginative power which gives poetical meaning to familiar

objects and ideas is revealed by the force of many single expressions

and by the delineation of more passionate situations. Such expressions

as the following, most of which reappear with an antique lustre in the

gold of Virgil's diction, are indicative of this higher power:--

Musae quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum.

Transnavit cita per teneras caliginis auras.

Postquam discordia taetra

Belli ferratos postes portasque refregit.

Quem super ingens

Porta tonat caeli.

Spiritus austri imbricitor. Naves velivolae, etc. etc.

These and similar phrases, some of which have already been quoted,

imply poetical creativeness. They tend to justify the estimate of the

genius of Ennius, indicated in the language of high admiration applied

to him by Lucretius,--

Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno

Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,

Per gentes Italas hominum quae clara clueret[53];

and in the signs of the careful study of the Annals which may be

traced in the elaborate workmanship of the Aeneid.

The longest specimen of narrative vivified by poetical feeling, from

the hand of Ennius, is the passage in which the vestal Ilia relates to

her sister the dream that portended her great and strange destiny:--

Excita cum tremulis anus attulit artubu' lumen,

Talia commemorat lacrimans, exterrita somno.

Eurudica prognata, pater quam noster amavit,

Vires vitaque corpu' meum nunc deserit omne.

Nam me visus homo pulcher per amoena salicta

Et ripas raptare locosque novos; ita sola

Postilla, germana soror, errare videbar

Tardaque vestigare et quaerere te neque posse

Corde capessere: semita nulla pedem stabilibat.

Exin compellare pater me voce videtur

His verbis: 'O gnata, tibi sunt ante ferendae

Aerumnae, post ex fluvio fortuna resistet.'

Haec ecfatu' pater, germana, repente recessit

Nec sese dedit in conspectum, corde cupitus,

Quanquam multa manus ad caeli caerula templa

Tendebam lacrimans et blanda voce vocabam:

Vix aegro cum corde meo me somnu' reliquit[54].

Though these lines are rough and inharmonious as compared with the

rhythm of Catullus or Virgil, yet they flow more smoothly and rapidly

than any of the other fragments preserved from Ennius. The impression

of gentleness and tender affection produced by the speech of Ilia,

implies some dramatic skill in the conception of character. And there

is real imaginative power shown in the sense of hurry and surprise, of

vague awe and helplessness conveyed in the lines--

Nam me visus homo pulcher per amoena salicta, etc.

From this passage Virgil has borrowed one of the finest touches in his

delineation of the passion of Dido, the sense of horror and desolation

haunting the Carthaginian queen in her dreams--

Agit ipse furentem

In somnis ferus Aeneas: semperque relinqui

Sola sibi, semper longam incomitata videtur

Ire viam, et Tyrios deserta quaerere terra.

Another of the most impressive passages in the early books of the

Aeneid--the dream in which Hector appears to Aeneas[55]--was evidently

suggested by the description which Ennius gave of the appearance of

the shade of Homer to himself. Some of his dramatic fragments,

also, as for instance the scene between Hecuba and Cassandra already

referred to, show a real power of conceiving and representing

passionate situations.

Among the modes of imaginative sentiment by which the poetry of

Ennius is pervaded, those kindled by patriotic enthusiasm are most

conspicuous. In the manifestation of his enthusiasm, he shows an

affinity to Virgil in ancient, and to Scott in modern times. He

resembles them in their mingled feelings of veneration and affection

which they entertain towards the national heroes of old times, and

the great natural features of their country, associated with historic

memories and legendary renown. Such feelings are shown by Ennius in

the lines of tender regret and true hero-worship, which express the

sorrow of Senate and people at the death of Romulus--

Pectora ... tenet desiderium, simul inter

Sese sic memorant, O Romule, Romule die

Qualem te patriae custodem di genuerunt!

O pater, O genitor, O sanguen dis oriundum!

Tu produxisti nos intra luminis oras[56].

They appear also in the language applied by him to the sacred river

of Rome, which had preserved the founder of the city from his untimely

fate, and which was thus inseparably identified with the national

destiny--

Teque pater Tiberine tuo cum flumine sancto.

and also in this fragment--

Postquam consistit fluvius qui est omnibu' princeps

Qui sub caeruleo.

The enumeration of the great warlike races in the line

Marsa manus, Peligna cohors, Vestina virum vis,

may recall the pride and enthusiasm which are kindled in the heart

of Virgil by the names of the various tribes of Italy, and of

places renowned for their fame in story, or their picturesque

environment[57]. This fond use of proper names recalling old

associations or the charm of natural scenery is also among the most

familiar characteristics of the poetry of Scott.

It was seen in the introductory chapter that the Roman mind was

peculiarly susceptible of that kind of feeling, which perhaps may best

be described as the sense of majesty. This vein of poetical emotion is

also conspicuous in the fragments of Ennius. His language shows a deep

sense of greatness and order, both in the material world and in human

affairs. Thus his style appears animated not only by vital force, but

by an impressive solemnity, befitting the grave and dignified emotion

which responds to such ideas. This susceptibility of his genius

appears in such expressions as these--

Magnum pulsatis Olympum. Indu mari magno.

Litora lata sonant.

Latos per populos terrasque.

Magnae gentes opulentae.

Quis potis ingentis oras evolvere belli?

Vertitur interea caelum cum ingentibu' signis;

and again in the following--

Indu foro lato sanctoque senatu.

Augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est.

Omnibu' cura viris uter esset induperator,

and in the epithet which Cicero quotes as applied to cities--

Urbes magnas atque _imperiosas_.

His imagination appears also to have been impressed by that sense of

outward pomp and magnificence which exercised a strong spell on the

Roman mind in all ages, and obtained its most complete and permanent

realisation in the architecture of the Empire. A short passage from

one of his tragedies, the Andromache, may be quoted as illustrative of

this influence, even in the writings of Ennius, though naturally it

is much more apparent in the style of those poets who witnessed the

grandeur of Rome in her later era:--

O pater, O patria, O Priami domus,

Saeptum altisono cardine templum!

Vidi ego te, astante ope barbarica,

Tectis caelatis, lacuatis,

Auro ebore instructum regifice![58]

While his peculiar poetical feeling is present chiefly in the

fragments of the Annals, the moral elements of his poetry may be

gathered both from his epic and dramatic remains. Strength and dignity

of character are the qualities with which his own nature was most

in sympathy. Yet in delineating the agitation of Ilia, the shame

of Cassandra, and the sorrow of Andromache, he reveals also much

tenderness of feeling,--the not unusual accompaniment of the manly

genius of Rome. A similar tenderness is found in union with the grave

tones of Pacuvius and Accius, and in still greater measure with

the fortitude of Lucretius and the majesty of Virgil. The masculine

qualities which most stir his enthusiasm are the Roman virtues of

resolution (constantia), sincerity, magnanimity, capacity for affairs.

Thus a latent glow of feeling may be discerned in the lines which

record the brave resolution of the Roman people during the first

hardships of the war with Pyrrhus--

Ast animo superant atque aspera prima

Volnera belli dispernunt[59];

and in this strong and scornful triumph over natural sorrow, from the

Telamon:--

Ego cum genui tum morituros scivi, et ei rei sustuli:

Praeterea ad Trojam cum misi ob defendendam Graeciam,

Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere[60].

The generosity and courage of a magnanimous nature are stamped upon

the kingly speech which he puts into the mouth of Pyrrhus. A frank

sincerity of character reveals itself in such passages as the

following:--

Eo ego ingenio natus sum,

Aeque inimicitiam atque amicitiam in frontem promptam gero[61].

There is no subtlety nor rhetorical point in the expression of his

serious convictions. The very style of the tragedies, which, as Cicero

says[62], 'does not depart from the natural order of the words,' is a

symbol of frankness and straightforwardness.

He shows also, in his delineations of character, high appreciation of

practical wisdom, and of its most powerful instrument in a free State,

the persuasive power of oratory. This appreciation is expressed in

the lines so much admired by Cicero and Aulus Gellius[63], though

ridiculed by the purism of Seneca:--

Is dictus 'st ollis popularibus olim

Qui tum vivebant homines, atque aevum agitabant,

Flos delibatus populi suadaeque medulla[64].

He seems to admire the sterling qualities of character and intellect

rather than the brilliant manifestations of impulse and genius. He

celebrates the heroism of brave endurance rather than of chivalrous

daring[65]: the fortitude that, in the long run, wins success, and

saves the State[66], rather than the impetuous valour which achieves

a barren glory; the sincerity and simplicity which are stronger

than art, yet that know when to speak and when to be silent[67]; the

sagacity which enables men to understand their circumstances, and to

turn them to the best account[68].

Many of his fragments, again, show traces of that just and vigorous

understanding of human life, and that shrewdness of observation, which

constitute a great satirist. The didactic tone of satire appears, for

instance, in the following lines--

Otioso in otio animus nescit quid velit;

Hic itidem est: enim neque domi nunc nos neque militiae sumus,

Imus huc, illuc hinc, cum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet;

Incerte errat animus: praeter propter vitam vivitur[69],--

a fragment which might be compared with certain passages in the

Epistles of Horace, which give expression to the _ennui_ experienced

as a result of the inaction and luxurious living of the Augustan age.

But a closer parallel will be found in a passage where Lucretius has

assumed something of the caustic tone of Roman satire--

Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille

Esse domi quem pertaesum 'st subitoque revertit,

Quippe domi nihilo melius qui sentiat esse, etc.[70]

While Ennius, like Lucretius, gives little indication of humour, yet

the folly and superstition of his times provoke him into tones of

contemptuous irony, especially where he has to expose the arts of

false prophets and fortune-tellers. The men of the manliest temper and

the strongest understanding in ancient times were most intolerant of

this mischievous form of imposture and credulity. Thus Thucydides,

in general so reserved in his expression of personal feeling, treats,

with a manifest irony, all supernatural pretences to foresee

or control the future. The tone in which Ennius writes of such

professions reminds us of Milton's grim contempt for

Eremites and friars

White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.

Thus, in a fragment of Book xi. of the Annals, the fears excited

by the prophets and diviners at the commencement of the war with

Antiochus are encountered with the pertinent question--

Satin' vates verant aetate in agenda?

Thus too the pretensions and the ignorance of astrologers are exposed

in a line of one of the dramas--

Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat: caeli scrutantur plagas.

And the following passage may be quoted as applicable to charlatans of

every kind, in every age and country--

Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque arioli,

Aut inertes aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat,

Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam,

Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab eis drachmam ipsi petunt[71].

There are passages of the same spirit to be found among the fragments

of Pacuvius and Accius.

There is not much indication of speculative thought in any of these

fragments. The blunt sentiment which Ennius puts into the mouth of

Neoptolemus probably expressed his own mental attitude towards the

schools of philosophy--

Philosophari est mihi necesse, at paucis: nam omnino haut placet.

His observations on life are neither of an imaginative, of a deeply

reflective, nor of a purely satiric character. Unlike the thoughts of

the Greek dramatists, they make no attempt to solve the painful riddle

of the world; they want the universality and systematic basis of

philosophical truths; they are expressed neither with the pointed

wit nor with the ironical humour of satire. They are the maxims of

a strong common sense and the dictates of a grave rectitude of will.

They are practical, not speculative. They have their origin in a sense

of duty rather than of consequences. They are in conformity with the

ideal realised in the best types of Roman character; and they bear

witness to the sterling worth combined with the ardent enthusiasm, and

the practical sense united to the strong imagination of the poet.

Such appear to be the chief attributes of genius and imaginative

sentiment, and the chief moral and intellectual features indicated in

the fragments of Ennius. It is not indeed possible, from the tenor of

single passages, to judge of the composition of a whole drama or of

a continuous book of the Annals. No single scene or speech can afford

sufficient grounds for inferring the amount of creative power with

which his characters were conceived and sustained in all their complex

relations. Yet enough has appeared in these fragments, which, from

the accidental mode of their preservation, must be regarded as the

ordinary samples and not chosen specimens of his style, to confirm

the ancient belief in his pre-eminence and to determine the prevailing

characteristics of his genius. There is ample evidence of the great

popularity which he enjoyed among his countrymen, and of the high

estimate which many of the best Roman writers formed of his power. It

is recorded that great crowds ('magna frequentia') attended the public

reading of the Annals. Virgil was said to have introduced many lines

into the Aeneid, with the view of pleasing a public devoted to Ennius

('populus Ennianus'). The title of Ennianista was assumed by a public

reader of the Annals in the time of Hadrian, when there was a strong

revival of admiration for the older literature of Rome[72]. Cicero

often speaks of the poet as 'noster Ennius,' and quotes him with all

the signs of hearty admiration and affection. The numerous references

in his works to the Annals and the Tragedies imply also a thorough

familiarity with these poems on the part of the readers for whom his

philosophical and rhetorical treatises were written. The criticism of

Quintilian, 'Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus

grandia et antiqua robora jam non tantam habent speciem quantam

religionem[73],' expresses a sentiment of traditional reverence as

well as of personal appreciation. Aulus Gellius, a writer of the time

of Hadrian, often quotes and comments upon him with hearty and genial

sympathy. The greatest among the Roman poets also, directly and

indirectly, acknowledge their admiration. The strong testimony of

Lucretius is alone sufficient to establish the fame of Ennius as a man

of remarkable force and genius. The spirit of the Annals still lives

in the antique charm and national feeling which make the epic poem

of Virgil the truest representation of Roman sentiment which has come

down to modern times. By Ovid he is characterised as--

Ennius, ingenio maximus, arte rudis.

Horace, although more reluctant and grudging in his admiration, yet

allows the 'Calabrian Muse' to be the best preserver of the fame of

the great Scipio. Even the disparaging lines--

Ennius et sapiens et fortis et alter Homerus,

Ut critici dicunt, leviter curare videtur

Quo promissa cadant et somnia Pythagorea[74],

are a strong testimony in favour of the esteem in which the vigour and

sagacity of Ennius were held by those who had all his works in their

hands. As one of the founders of Roman literature, it was impossible

that he could have rivalled the careful and finished style of the

Augustan poets; but, by his rude and energetic labours, he laid the

strong groundwork on which later poets built their fame.

He has been exposed to more serious detraction in modern times, as

the corrupter of the pure stream of early Roman poetry. It is alleged

against him by Niebuhr, that through jealousy he suppressed the ballad

and epic poetry of the early bards. The answer to this charge has

already been given. There is no evidence to prove that any such poems

were in existence in the time of Ennius. By other modern scholars

he is disadvantageously compared with Naevius, who is held up to

admiration as the last of the genuine Roman minstrels. Naevius appears

indeed to have been a remarkable and original man, yet his very scanty

fragments do not afford sufficient evidence to justify the reversal of

the verdict of antiquity on the relative greatness and importance of

the two poets. The old Roman party, in opposition to whom Ennius

and his friends are supposed to have introduced the new taste and

suppressed the old, never showed any zeal in favour of poetry of any

kind. Cato, their only literary representative, wrote prose treatises

on antiquities and agriculture, and in one of his speeches reproached

Fulvius Nobilior for the consideration which he showed to Ennius. The

evidence of these epic and dramatic fragments which have just been

considered, is all in favour of the high verdict of antiquity on the

importance and pre-eminence of the author of the Annals. Whatever in

the later poets is most truly Roman in sentiment and morality appears

to be conceived in the spirit of Ennius.

[Footnote 1: Parco admodum sumptu contentus et unius ancillae

ministerio.]

[Footnote 2: xvii. 17.]

[Footnote 3: The line--

Ad patrios montes et ad incunabula nostra,

which is quoted by Cicero in a letter to Atticus, and which

Vahlen attributed to Ennius, is now generally assigned to

Cicero himself.]

[Footnote 4: Livy xxxviii. 17.]

[Footnote 5: 'When the Carthaginians were coming from all

sides to the conflict, and all things, beneath high heaven,

confounded by the hurry and tumult of war, shook with alarm:

and men were in doubt to which of the two the empire of the

whole world, by land and sea, should fall.'--Lucret. iii.

834-7.]

[Footnote 6: Mommsen, book iii. ch. 5.]

[Footnote 7: The author of Caesar's Spanish War quotes

Ennius in his account of the critical moment in the Battle

of Munda:--'Hic, ut ait Ennius, "pes pede premitur, armis

teruntur arma."'--Bell. Hisp. xxxi.]

[Footnote 8: Amphit. 52-3--

Quid contraxistis frontem, quia tragoediam

Dixi futuram hanc?]

[Footnote 9: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, etc.]

[Footnote 10: De Senectute, 5.]

[Footnote 11: De Oratore, ii. 68.]

[Footnote 12: 'L. Aelium Stilonem dicere solitum ferunt Q.

Ennium de semet ipso haec scripsisse, picturamque istam morum

et ingenii ipsius Q. Ennii factam esse.'--Gell. xii. 4.]

[Footnote 13: 'He finished: and summons to him one with whom

often, and right gladly, he shared his table, his talk, and

the whole weight of his business, when weary with debate,

throughout the day, on high affairs of state, within the wide

Forum and the august Senate,--one to whom he could frankly

speak out serious matters, trifles, and jest; to whom he could

pour forth and safely confide, if he wanted to confide in any

one, all that he cared to utter, good or bad; with whom,

in private and in public, he had much entertainment and

enjoyment,--a man of that nature which no thought ever prompts

to baseness through levity or malice: a learned, honest,

pleasant man, eloquent, contented, and cheerful, of much tact,

speaking well in season; courteous and of few words; with much

old buried lore; whom length of years had made versed in old

and recent ways; in the laws of many ancients, divine and

human; one who knew when to speak and when to be silent. Him,

during the battle, Servilius thus addresses.']

[Footnote 14: [Greek: Skipiona gar adon kai epi mega ton andra

exarai boulomenos phesi monon an Homeron epaxious epainous

eipein Skipionos.]--Aelian, as quoted by Suidas, vol. i. p.

1258. Ed. Gaisford. Cf. Vahlen.]

[Footnote 15: 'Here is he laid, to whom no one, either

countryman or enemy, has been able to pay a due meed for his

services.']

[Footnote 16: 'From the utmost east, beyond the Maeotian

marsh, there is no one who in actions can vie with me. If it

is lawful for any one to ascend to the realms of the gods, to

me alone the vast gate of heaven is opened!']

[Footnote 17: 'Yet nothing more glorious than this man doth it

(the island of Sicily) seem to have contained, nor aught more

holy, nor more wonderful and beloved.']

[Footnote 18: 'Behold, my countrymen, the bust of the old man,

Ennius. He penned the record of your fathers' mighty deeds.

Let no one pay to me the meed of tears, nor weep at my

funeral. And why? because I still live, as I speed to and fro,

through the mouths of men.']

[Footnote 19: 'Hail, poet Ennius, who pledgest to mortals thy

fiery verse from thy inmost marrow.']

[Footnote 20: 'Others have treated the subject in the verses,

which in days of old the Fauns and bards used to sing, before

any one had climbed the cliffs of the Muses, or gave any care

to style.']

[Footnote 21: 'I have always said and will say that the gods

of heaven exist, but I think that they heed not the conduct of

mankind; for, if they did, it would be well with the good and

ill with the bad; and it is not so now.']

[Footnote 22:

Cor jubet hoc Enni, postquam destertuit esse

Maeonides, Quintus pavone ex Pythagoreo.

Persius, vi. 10 (ed. Jahn).]

[Footnote 23: Vahlen.]

[Footnote 24: Horace, Sat. ii. 4.]

[Footnote 25: 'The poetical philosophy, which the later

Pythagoreans had extracted from the writings of the old

Sicilian comedian, Epicharmus of Megara, or rather had, at

least for the most part, circulated under cover of his name,

regarded the Greek gods as natural substances, Zeus as

the atmosphere, the soul as a particle of Sun-dust, and so

forth.'--Mommsen's Hist. of Rome, Book iii. ch. 15. (Dickson's

Translation.)]

[Footnote 26: 'This is that Jupiter which I speak of,

which the Greeks call the air; it is first wind and clouds;

afterwards rain, and after rain, cold; next it becomes wind,

then air again. All those things which I mention to you are

Jupiter, because it is he who supports mortals and cities and

all animals.']

[Footnote 27: Mommsen.]

[Footnote 28: 'Inventore minor.'--Horace.]

[Footnote 29: Another passage, ascribed to Ennius, descriptive

of the greed of a parasite, occupies the ground common to

Roman comedy and to Roman satire:--

Quippe sine cura laetus lautus cum advenis

Insertis malis, expedito bracchio

Alacer, celsus, lupino expectans impetu,

Mox cum alterius obligurias bona,

Quid censes domino esse animi? pro divum fidem!

Ille tristis cibum dum servat, tu ridens voras.]

[Footnote 30: The meaning of the passage amounts to no more

than this, that the man who tries to 'sell' another, and

fails, is himself 'sold.']

[Footnote 31: Brutus, 20.]

[Footnote 32: De Fin. i. 2.]

[Footnote 33: Cf. Eur. Med. 1-8:--

[Greek:

Eith' ophel' Argous me diaptasthai skaphos

Kolchon es aian kyaneas Symplegadas,

med' en napaisi Peliou pesein pote

tmetheisa peuke, med' eretmosai cheras

andron aristeon, hoi to panchryson deros

Pelia metelthon; ou gar an despoin' eme

Medeia pyrgous ges epleus' Iolkias

eroti thymon ekplageis' Iasonos.]]

[Footnote 34: Several of these fragments will be examined

later.]

[Footnote 35: Tusc. Disp. ii. 16.]

[Footnote 36: 'How tender, how true to character, how

affecting!'--De Div. i. 31. 'What a great poet, though he is

despised by those admirers of Euphorion. He understands that

sudden and unlooked-for calamities are more grievous. A noble

poem,--pathetic in its matter, language, and music.'--Tusc.

Disp. iii. 19.]

[Footnote 37: 'Here it is; here, the torch, wrapped in fire

and blood. Many years it hath lain hid; help, citizens, and

extinguish it. For now, on the great sea, a swift fleet is

gathering. It hurries along a host of calamities. They come: a

fierce host lines the shores with sail-winged ships.' Exitium

= exitiorum; cf. Cic. Orator. 46, Itaque idem poeta, qui

inusitatius contraxerat 'Patris mei meum factum pudet' pro

'meorum factorum' et 'Texitur: exitium examen rapit' pro

'exitiorum.']

[Footnote 38: Acad. ii. 28.]

[Footnote 39: Gellius, xvii. 21.]

[Footnote 40: He speaks of Eurydice as the wife of Aeneas.

This statement he is supposed to have derived from the

_Cypria_.]

[Footnote 41: Cicero, Arch. 9.]

[Footnote 42: 'Wisdom is banished from amongst us, violence

rules the day: the good orator is despised, the rough soldier

loved; striving, not with words of learning, but with words of

hate, they get embroiled in feuds, and stir up enmity one with

another. They challenge not their adversaries to contend by

forms of law, but claim their rights by the sword, and aim at

sovereign power, and make their way by sheer force.']

[Footnote 43: Cic. De Off. i. 12.]

[Footnote 44: 'Neither do I ask gold for myself, nor offer ye

to me a ransom. Let us wage the war, not like hucksters, but

like soldiers--with the sword, not with gold, putting our

lives to the issue. Whether our mistress Fortune wills that

you or I should reign, or what her purpose be, let us prove by

valour. And hearken too to this saying,--The brave men, whom

the fortune of battle spares, their liberty I have resolved to

spare. Take my offer, as I grant it, under favour of the great

gods.']

[Footnote 45: 'Whither have your minds, which heretofore were

wont to stand firm, madly swerved from the straight course?']

[Footnote 46: A comparison with the original passage (Iliad

vi. 506) will show that Ennius, while reproducing much, though

not all, of the force and life of Homer's image, has added

also some touches of his own:--

[Greek:

hos d' hote tis statos hippos, akostesas epi phatne,

desmon aporrhexas theie pedioio kroainon,

eiothos louesthai eurrheios potamoio,

kydioon; hypsou de kare echei, amphi de chaitai

omois aissontai; ho d' aglaiephi pepoithos,

rhimpha he gouna pherei meta t' ethea kai nomon hippon.]

Cf. Virgil, Aen. xi. 492:--

Qualis ubi abruptis fugit praesepia vinclis

Tandem liber equus, campoque potitus aperto

Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,

Aut adsuetus aquae perfundi flumine noto

Emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte

Luxurians, luduntque jubae per colla, per armos.]

[Footnote 47: 'They watch, as when the consul is going to give

the signal, all look eagerly to the barrier, to see how soon

he may start the chariots from the painted entrance.']

[Footnote 48:

Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum

Voltu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat.--Aen. i. 254.]

[Footnote 49: [Greek: Ennios Rhomaios poietes; hon Ailianos

epainein axion phesi.... delon de hos etethepei tou poietou

ten megalonoian kai ton metron to megaleion kai axiagaston.]

Suidas, vol i. p. 1258, ed. Gaisford.]

[Footnote 50: Cf. Iliad xxiii. 114-120; and also Virgil, Aen.

vi. 179:--

Itur in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum,

Procumbunt piceae, sonat icta securibus ilex,

Fraxineaeque trabes cuneis et fissile robur

Scinditur, advolvunt ingentis montibus ornos.]

[Footnote 51: 'One man, by biding his time, restored the

commonwealth. He cared not for what men said of him, as

compared with our safety: therefore now his fame waxeth

brighter day by day.']

[Footnote 52: 'He watched the courage of his army, to see if

any murmur should arise for some pause to the long battle,

some rest from their weary toil.']

[Footnote 53: 'As sang our Ennius, the first who brought down

from beautiful Helicon a chaplet of unfading leaf, the fame

of which should be bruited loud through the nations of Italian

men.']

[Footnote 54: 'When the old dame had risen, and with trembling

limbs had brought the light, thus she (Ilia), roused in

terror from her sleep, with tears tells her tale: "Daughter of

Eurydice, whom our father loved, my strength and life now fail

me through all my frame. For methought that a goodly man was

bearing me off through the pleasant willow-groves, by the

river-banks, and places strange to me. Thereafter, O my

sister, I seemed to be wandering all alone, and with slow

steps to track my way, to be seeking thee, and to be unable

to find thee near; no footpath steadied my step. Afterwards

methought I heard my father address me in these

words--'Daughter, trouble must first be borne by thee;

afterwards thy fortune shall rise up again from the river.'

With these words, O sister, he suddenly departed, nor gave

himself to my sight, though my heart yearned to him, though I

kept eagerly stretching my hands to the blue vault of heaven,

weeping, and calling on him with loving tones. With pain and

weary heart at last sleep left me."']

[Footnote 55: Aen. ii. 270.]

[Footnote 56: 'Regret and sorrow fill their hearts, while

thus they say to one another, O Romulus, God-like Romulus, how

great a guardian of our country did the gods create in thee! O

father, author of our being, O blood sprung from the gods!

it is thou that hast brought us forth within the realms of

light.']

[Footnote 57: E.g. passages such as the following:--

Quique altum Praeneste viri, quique arva Gabinae

Junonis gelidumque Anienem et roscida rivis

Hernica saxa colunt, quos dives Anagnia pascit,

Quos, Amasene pater.--Aen. vii. 682-5.]

[Footnote 58: 'O father! O fatherland! O house of Priam,

palace, closing on high-sounding hinge, I have seen thee,

guarded by a barbaric host, with carved and deep-fretted roof,

with ivory and gold royally adorned.']

[Footnote 59: 'But they rise superior in spirit, and spurn the

first sharp wounds of war.']

[Footnote 60: 'When I begat them, I knew that they must die,

and to that end I bred them. Besides, when I sent them to Troy

to fight for Greece, I was well aware that I was sending them,

not to a feast, but to a deadly war.']

[Footnote 61: 'Such is my nature. Enmity and friendship

equally I bear stamped on my forehead.']

[Footnote 62: 'Ennio delector, ait quispiam, quod non discedit

a communi ordine verborum.'--Orator, 11.]

[Footnote 63: Cicero, Brutus, 15; Aulus Gellius, xii. 2.]

[Footnote 64: 'He was called by those, his fellow-countrymen,

who flourished then and enjoyed their day, the chosen flower

of the people, and the marrow of persuasion.']

[Footnote 65: Compare his account of the Tribune in the

Istrian war:--

'Undique conveniunt velut imber, tela tribuno,' etc.]

[Footnote 66: Cf. 'Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem,'

etc.]

[Footnote 67: Cf.

'Ita sapere opino esse optimum, ut pro viribus

Tacere ac fabulare tute noveris;'

also

'Ea libertas est quae pectus purum et firmum gestitat.']

[Footnote 68: 'Egregie cordatus homo catus Aeliu' Sextus.']

[Footnote 69: 'In idleness the mind knows not what it wants.

This is now our case. We are neither now at home nor

abroad. We go hither, back again to the place from which we

came,--when we have reached it we desire to leave it again.

Our mind is all astray--existence goes on outside of real

life.']

[Footnote 70: iii. 1059-67.]

[Footnote 71: 'But your superstitious prophets and impudent

fortune-tellers, idle fellows, or madmen, or the victims of

want, who cannot discern the path for themselves, yet point

the way out to others, and ask a drachma from the very persons

to whom they promise a fortune.']

[Footnote 72: 'And there it is announced to Julianus that

a certain public reader, an accomplished man, with a very

well-trained and musical voice, read the Annals of Ennius

publicly in the theatre. Let us go, says he, to hear this

"Ennianista," whoever he is,--for by that name he chose to be

called.'--Aulus Gellius, xviii. 5.

The following line of Martial (v. 10. 7) implies also his

popularity under the Empire--

'Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi, Roma, Marone.']

[Footnote 73: 'Let us venerate Ennius like the groves, sacred

from their antiquity, in which the great and ancient

oak-trees are invested not so much with beauty as with sacred

associations.'--Inst. Or. x. i. 88.]

[Footnote 74: 'Ennius, the wise and strong, and the second

Homer, as his critics will have it, seems to care little for

the issue of all his promises and Pythagorean dreams.'--Epist.

II. i. 50-2.]