xxxii
Q. ENNIUS.
war with Perseus that Q. Ennius composed his poem under the
strange name of Annales ; but we cannot conceive that he
should, like a chronicler, have described the events as they
took place one year after another : he was a man of too much
genius to write such a foolish work, which would have
been nothing more than a heap of versus memoriales. His
poem was the first real imitation of the Greek ; for those of the
earlier Naevius had been composed in the ancient lyric manner.
The number of fragments which are preserved, enables us to
form a tolerably clear idea of the whole work ; and if the more
ancient references which we have, were more trust-worthy in
numbers, we might even have an accurate knowledge of the
proportion of its parts. But corrupt as a great many numbers
in the ancient grammarians are, yet it is clear that the earliest
times, the reputed arrival of the Trojans in Latium and the
period of the kings, were contained in the first three books.
The war with Pyrrhus may with great probability be assigned
to the fifth.8 I do not know whether the verse
Hoiriila Bomuleum Ceitamina pango ducllum
which occurs in Morula’s collection of the fragments, is genu-
ine; but there can be no doubt that Ennius occupied himself
very little with the internal struggles of the Romans, and
according to the notions then prevalent upon epic poetry, he
probably spoke only of the wars. The 225 years from the
expulsion of the kings until the war of Pyrrhu=, were con-
tained in a single book Of the Samnite wars he probably
gave only a brief sketch. If we examine the later books
containing the events subsequent to the first Punic war, which
according to Cicero9 he passed over, we find passages which
prove that the war against Hannibal was described very
minutely. The account of it must have begun in the seventh
book, and in the twelfth Ennius was still occupied with it.
In the thirteenth he treated of the war with Antiochus, and in
the fifteenth the Istrian war ; so that the last six books com-
prised a period of only twenty-four years, for the whole work
consisted of eighteen books.10 In the eighteenth book Ennius
8 Merula places this war in the sixth book, because he cannot believe that
Ennius should have devoted only one book to the intervening period. But
Ennius surely did not versify the consular Fasti, but treated only of the prin-
cipal events.—N. 9 Brutus, 19.
10 Wemaytakeitfor granted that Ennius himself made the division into
AUTHORITIES OF ENNIUS.
XXXIli
himself intimated that in the year 578 he was still engaged in
writing his work. The whole poem was wanting in symmetry,
for in the early times, which were despatched very briefly, a
great many things must have been passed over, like the first
Punic war. Scipio and M-Fulvius Nobilior were praised by
him very much in detail, and the poet accompanied the latter
to the Aetolian war. The beautiful history of the kings in
Livy may have been taken chiefly from Ennius. He was born
according to Cato, in 513, at Rudiae in Calabria11, and died in
583, at the age of seventy12, having carried his poem nearly
down to the time of his death.
The authorities which Ennius followed for the earliest times,
were the annales maximi; for the kingly period, the ancient
lays and the Commentarii pontificum∙, for the middle age of
Rome, he had Timaeus, Hieronymus, and Fabius; and of the
later events, he was himself an eye-witness. Hc deserves cen-
sure for his vanity in putting himself on an equality with
Homer, and for his bad hexameters. It is annoying to find him
speak with contempt of the ancient poets; but there are, on
the other hand, fragments of his which shew a truly poetical
genius. He resembled Klopstock, who, like him, despised the
ancient forms, without being so thoroughly acquainted with
those of the Greeks as to be able to distinguish himself in their
application. The fragments of Ennius were collected very
carefully about the end of the sixteenth century, by Hierony-
mus Columna13, who added a very prolific but instructive com-
mentary. Some verses in this collection are taken from Claudius
Sacerdos, whose work still exists in MS at Vienna.14 This
eighteen books. The opinion that Q. Vargunteius made it, is founded on a
wrong interpretation of a passage in Suetonius (Z>e ιllustr. Gram. 2). I believe
that Suetonius merely meant to say that Vargmrteius made a critical recension
and explanatory commentaries on Ennius, such as Lampadio had made on
Nacvius. — N.
11 Ciccro, Tusrul. Quaest. i. ɪ, Brut. 18; Varro, ap. GelKum, xvii.21.
li Cicero, Brut. 20, de Senect. 5.
13 Q. Ennii, poetae Vetustissimi quae supersunt fragmenta, ab Hieronymo
Columna conqui⅛ita, di⅛posita et explicata, Neapoli 1590. 4°. A reprint of this
edition appeared at Amsterdam in 1707.
14 (It is now published in Endlieher’s Analeeta Grammatica.') Hieronymus
Columna and Natalis Comes both had tlɪe vanity to pretend that they had read
authors which either did not exist at all, or were mentioned only by scholiasts.
Of the latter they may indeed have read more complete MSS than those which
have come down to us. — N.
1 OL. I. d