xxxiv
EDITIONS OE ENNIUS.
collection contains, with the exception of a few trifles, all that
can be gathered from the ancient authors. Soon after Columna5
a Dutchman, P. Merula, published a new edition of the frag-
ments of Ennius13, with many additions and a new arrangement.
Among the additions, there are some passages which Columna
had overlooked; but Merula says that he had gathered a number
of verses from a work of L. Calpurnius Piso, a contemporary
of Pliny, which bore the title “ De Continentia veterum poet-
arum.” He adds, that Piso in this work compared the early
poets with those of his own time, and the Iatterwith one another;
that the manuscript of it was at Paris, in the library of St. Vic-
tor, whence he feared it would be stolen. Now what circum-
stance could have led him to this strange apprehension, for
which no reason is assigned? Another account states that the
manuscript was formerly bound up together with a manuscript
of Lucan, from which it had afterwards been cut away. Now
there is indeed in the library of St. Victor, at Paris, a manu-
script of Lucan, from which another has been torn off, — my
friend, Immanuel Bekker, whose attention I had directed to it,
saw it himself,—but this proves very little. It is not impro-
bable that P. Merula, according to the fashion of the time,
either in joke or in earnest, wanted to impose upon the public;
but he was not able to write such perfect verses as would deceive
a good scholar. At least, all those single verses which he as-
signs to Naevius and Ennius, and which he pretends to have
derived from Piso, are suspicious to me, for they are wanting
in rhythm, though I do not mean positively to assert that they
are modern. They are hexameters, and indeed such as Ennius
might have written; but they never carry with them that con-
viction of genuineness which is so strong in reference to the
other fragments of Ennius, that we might almost swear and
say—This cannot come from a modern author. My opinion,
therefore, is, that we must not place too much confidence in
those verses which are said to be taken from Piso. If Mcrula
had a suspicion that the manuscript might be stolen, why did
he not copy and publish it?
Not long after Ennius, whom we fairly reckon among the
Roman historians, for many statements of his have been incor-
porated with history by subsequent writers, the history of Rome
began to be written in Latin prose; and the first work we meet
'5 Q. Ennu fragmenta eollegɪt et IIlustiavit P. Merula, Lugd. Bat. 1595.
CATO⅛ OKI&INES.
XXXV
with, is the most important that was ever written on the history
of ancient Italy; I mean the “ Origines” of Cato. The form
which he adopted in this work, shews great originality, and
also that the Romans at that time began to entertain just views
of their own history, and to follow the right way in writing it.
Subsequent writers again lost sight of this, and became estranged
from the early constitution of their country. Cato wrote the
history not only of Rome, but of Italy. While he descιibed
the gradual increase of the Roman commonwealth, he seems to
have given accounts of the nations of Italy as they successively
came in contact with it.16 The plan of the Origines, which
consisted of seven books, is known from Nepos17 ; the first
book contained the history of the kings ; the second and third
carried the history down to the complete subjugation of Italy;
the fourth contained the first Punic war; the fifth,the second;
and the sixth and seventh, the subsequent wars down to his
own time, that is, to the praetorship of Ser. Galba. Cato was
a very great man in every respect, and rose far above his age.
His work is very often quoted, but there is only one quotation
in Gellius which deserves the name of an excerpt; this is the
passage about the tribune Caedicius, in the time of the second
Punic war, and accordingly belongs to the fourth book. It
shews Cato’s peculiar manner, and how it was that Cicero, who
in general is uncertain whether he should praise or blame Cato,
yet distinguished him among all his contemporaries. He wrote
his work at an advanced age, about the year 600. There is a
curious prolepsis and parachronism in Livy, in the disputes
about the Lex Oppia, where, in the year 561, the tribune,
L. Valerius, appeals to Cato’s Origines against him.18 During
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, people had such curious
notions respecting everything written by Livy, that on account
of this passage, they would not believe that Cato wrote his
Origines at an advanced period of his life, and G. J. Vossius 19
thought it worth while to consider, whether C. Nepos was not
speaking of a different work in saying that Cato wrote it as a
senex. But Vossius was the first who thought that Livymight
perhaps have spoken there in his own person, and have made
a mistake.
16 Compare vol. i., p.8 and note 2; vol ii. p. 8. 17 Cato, c. 3.
18 Livy, xxxiv. 5, makes L. Valerius say to Cato: Tuas adversus IeOrigines
revoh am. 18 De Histoi. Cat. i. 5.
d 2