Collected Fragments of Ennius Read online

  Collected Fragments of

  ENNIUS

  (c. 239–c. 169 BC)

  Contents

  The Translations

  THE COLLECTED FRAGMENTS

  The Latin Texts

  THE LATIN FRAGMENTS

  The Dual Text

  DUAL LATIN AND ENGLISH TEXT

  The Biography

  LIFE OF ENNIUS by E. H. Warmington

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2018

  Version 1

  Browse Ancient Classics

  Collected Fragments of

  QUINTUS ENNIUS

  By Delphi Classics, 2018

  COPYRIGHT

  Collected Fragments of Ennius

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2018.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  ISBN: 978 1 78656 405 4

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

  The Translations

  Archaelogical remains at Rudiae — Quintus Ennius was born at Rudiae, formerly a small town located near modern Lecce in the heel of Italy, ancient Calabria.

  The amphitheatre at Rudiae

  THE COLLECTED FRAGMENTS

  Translated by E. H. Warmington for the Loeb Classical Library

  Widely regarded as the father of Roman literature, Quintus Ennius (239–169 BC) was instrumental in creating a new Roman literary identity, his works going on to inspire major developments in Roman religion, social organisation and popular culture. In 204 BC he was brought to Rome in the entourage of Cato and he took up residence on the Aventine Hill, where he soon found work. Fluent in his native Oscan as well as Greek and Latin, Ennius became one of the first teachers to introduce Greek learning to the Roman upper classes through public readings of important Greek texts.

  Though largely overshadowed today by Virgil’s later epic The Aeneid, Ennius was revered by his contemporaries for producing the first true Latin epic poem. Composed in fifteen books, later expanded to eighteen, The Annals covered Roman history from the fall of Troy in 1184 BC down to the censorship of Cato the Elder in 184 BC. It was the first Latin poem to adopt the dactylic hexameter metre used in Greek epic and didactic poetry, leading it to become the standard metre for these genres in Latin poetry. The epic also became a school text for Roman schoolchildren, eventually supplanted by The Aeneid.

  The Annals gave Roman epic its canonical shape and pioneered many of its most characteristic features, inspiring the later works of Virgil, Ovid and Statius. Though only 600 lines survive today, Ennius is recognised for domesticating Greek epic and drama, elevating Roman literature to the same sphere as his Greek models. Ennius also pursued a wide range of literary endeavours and was successful in almost all of his literary forms. His tragedies were long regarded as classics of the genre, while other major texts included philosophical works in prose and verse, epigrams, didactic poems, dramas on Roman themes and occasional poetry that later influenced the development of satire by Horace and Juvenal.

  Ennius’ works only survive in fragments, recorded by later writers and painstakingly collected over the centuries by classical scholars, who have conjectured and agonised over the positioning and understanding of the precious remnants of Rome’s first epic poet. In spite of their fragmentary form, the preserved texts afford us a rare understanding of the importance of Ennius’ work and its immeasurable impact on the history of Latin literature.

  Double herm featuring a portrait believed by some to be of Ennius, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek

  CONTENTS

  The Annals

  Book I. Prelude. From the Sack of Troy to the Death of Romulus

  Book II. The Reigns of Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius

  Book III. The Reigns of Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus; Establishment of the Republic

  Book IV. The Early Republic, probably to the Gallic Invasion of 390 or 387 BC

  Book V. Samnite Wars and the Rise of Pyrrhus, to BC 295

  Book VI. The War with Pyrrhus, 281–271 BC

  Book VII. Events leading to the Second Punic War

  210–27

  Book VIII. The Second Punic War to the Departure of Scipio for Africa

  Book IX. Scipio’s campaigns in Africa; Peace, 201 BC

  Book X. Wars with Macedon to the settlement with Philip, 196 BC, after the Battle of Cynoscephalae

  Book XI. From the Peace made in 196 to the Opening of the War with Antiochus III (192 — 1); Cato in Rome and in Spain

  Book XII.

  Book XIII. The War with Antiochus perhaps to the departure of Lucius Scipio and Publius Scipio Africanus for the East in 190 BC

  Book XIV. From the Departure of the Scipios to the settlement of Asia after the Battle of Magnesia

  Book XV. The Aetolian War, 189 BC, and the Achievement of M. fulvius nobilior, whom ennius celebrated elsewhere in a separate work (p ff.). The original conclusion of the Annals

  Book XVI. From 188 BC to the end of the Istrian War

  Book XVII. Probably from the end of the Istrian War to the Defeat of P. Licinius Crassus at Callinicus, 171 BC, during the third Macedonian War

  Book XVIII. Further Events of the year 171?

  Other Fragments of the Annals not assigned to any Book

  Tragedies

  Achilles or Achilles After Aristarchus

  Ajax

  Alcmaeon

  Alexander

  Andromache or Andromache Captive

  Andromeda

  Athamas

  Cresphontes

  Erechtheus

  Eumenides

  The Ransom of Hector

  Hecuba

  Iphigenia

  Medea or Medea Banished

  Melanippa

  Nemea

  Phoenix

  Telamon

  Telephus

  Thyestes

  Other Plays

  Ambracia

  The Sabine Women

  The Little Hostess

  The All-Round Champion

  Unassigned Fragments of Plays

  From Tragedies

  From Comedies

  Either Tragedies or Comedies

  Satires

  Book I

  Book II

  Book III

  Book IV

  Unplaced Fragments from the Satires

  Scipio

  Epigrams (Epitaphs)

  Other Poems

  Sotas

  Delikatessen

  Epicharmus

  Euhemerus or Sacred History

  Fragments Not Assigned to Any Work

  From the Annals?

  From the Satires?

  Various Fragments

  Spurious Fragments

  The Patrician Torlonia bust thought to be of Cato the Elder

  A first-century AD bust of the orator Cicero in the Capitoline Museums, Rome — Cicero highly regarded Ennius’ works and is one of the key authors to have preserved many of his famous quotations.

  The Annals

  Book I. Prelude. From the Sack of Troy to the Death of Romulus

  1

  The first line; invocation of the Muses:

  Varro: In Ennius there is... —

  Muses, wh
o with your feet beat mighty Olympus; by Olympus the Greeks mean the sky.

  2–3

  Exhortation to readers:

  Probus: As for the neuter gender the syllable is short.... Ennius in the first book —

  for my subject and my poem shall have renown among the peoples of Italy.

  Homer, seen by Ennius on Mount Helicon in a dream, was the source of inspiration:

  Fronto: Homer’s instructress was Calliope; Ennius’ instructors were Homer and Sleep.

  Marcus Aurelius to Fronto: And now I pass to our poet Ennius, who you say began to write after sleeping and dreaming. But surely if he had not been roused out of his sleep he would never have told the tale of his dream.

  4

  Fronto writes to Marcus Aurelius: If ever, —

  Fettered in soft calm sleep

  as the poet says, I see you in dreams, there is no time when I do not embrace you and fondly kiss you... this is one proof of my love, which I take from the Annals, a poetic and dreamy one indeed.

  5

  Homer appears:

  Cicero: When Ennius had dreamed, this is what he told of it —

  Homer the poet appeared at my side.

  6

  Opening of Homer’s speech:

  Cicero: Unless indeed we choose to believe that Ennius, merely because he dreamed it, did not hear the whole of that famous speech —

  ‘O loving kindness of thy heart....

  as well as he would have heard it if he had been awake.

  7–10

  Homer explains to Ennius some principles of life:

  Varro These two, sky and earth, correspond with life and body. The wet and cold masses form the earth, whether we assume that —

  visus Colonna, Merula coll. Aen. II, 270, fortasse recte.

  ‘The feather-furbished tribe is wont to be delivered of eggs, not of life,

  according to the words of Ennius —

  ‘and after that time life itself comes to the chicks by a god’s will;

  or, according to Zenon of Cition, that the seed of living things is fire and this is their life and soul.

  11–12

  Varro: Right therefore is the statement of... Ennius —

  ‘And earth who herself bestowed the body takes it back and wastes not a whit.

  13

  Homer tells how his soul transmigrated from a peacock into Ennius’ body:

  Donatus: ‘I remember seeing’ instead of ‘having seen’: Ennius —

  ‘I remember becoming a peacock.

  A scholiast: Persius alludes to Ennius, who states that in a dream he saw a vision of Homer on Parnassus (mistake for Helicon); Homer said that his soul was in Ennius’ body.

  14

  Romans must remember the place where Ennius dreamed: Persius: —

  ‘Take note, ye citizens, of Luna’s harbour — it is worth while.

  Thus commanded Ennius in his senses after he had snored out his dream that he was the Man of Maeonia — Quintus at last out of a Pythagorean peacock.

  A scholiast on this passage: This line he took from the poems of Ennius to put into his own poem. It is well then that he says,’ thus commanded Ennius in his senses after he had snored out.’ That is what Ennius says in the beginning of his Annals where he states that in the course of a dream he saw a vision of Homer who said that he was once a peacock and from it, according to a rule laid down by the philosopher Pythagoras, his soul had been conveyed into Ennius.

  15

  Beginning of the narrative. The fall of Troy:

  Priscianus: ‘Veterrimus’ is as it were derived from a positive ‘veter.’... Ennius has —

  When aged Priam was laid low beneath the warring Pelasgian,

  16–17

  The lineage of Aeneas: Assaracus, Capys, and Anchises:

  Servius (supplemented): Assaracus was grandfather of Anchises.... Ennius —

  From Assaracus sprang Capys best of men: and he was from his loins begetter of Anchises the loyal.

  18–19

  Anchises:

  Probus: Ennius pictures to himself Anchises as having some power of soothsaying by bird-lore, and, through this, something of the prophet in him: thus — and shrewd Anchises to whom Venus, loveliest of goddesses, granted power to foretell, yea to have a godly heart of prophecy.

  20

  An approach of Venus:

  Servius (supplemented): ‘To float’ instead of ‘to fly,’ as in a passage of E. in the first book —

  Along she floated swiftly through thin wafts of mistiness.

  21

  Venus appears to Aeneas and his companions:

  Festus: ‘Sos’ for ‘eos’; for example Ennius in Book I —

  Thereupon she, hallowed among the holy goddesses, took her stand close to them.

  22–3

  She tries to persuade Aeneas to obey Anchises and retire to Mount Ida:

  Festus: That the ancients used the term ‘to plead’ for ‘to deal.’ Ennius also was a witness when he wrote in the first book of the Annals —

  ‘But be sure to do what your father pleads for in prayers with you.’

  24

  Italy and the Latins:

  Macrobius: ‘There is a region which the Greeks call by name “Western Land.”’ Ennius in the first book —

  There is a region which mortals used to call ‘Western Land,’

  25

  Varro: That ‘cascus’ means ‘old’ is shown by Ennius where he says — which the ancient Latin folk of eld did hold.

  26

  The early connexion of Latium with Saturn:

  Varro says of the Capitoline Hill: Men have recorded that once upon a time this hill was called ‘Saturn’s’ and hence Latium has been called —

  Saturn’s Land as Ennius among others calls Latium.

  27–8

  The fortunes of Saturn:

  Nonius: ‘Caelum’ neuter. In a masculine form... Ennius —

  To Saturn whom Sky begat.

  29

  Why he fled to Italy:

  Nonius: ‘Obsidio’... neuter in Ennius —

  When great Titan was afflicting him with cruel duress.

  30

  Aeneas and his followers arrive at Laurentum in Latium:

  Priscianus: ‘Laurentis’ for ‘Laurens.’ Ennius in the Annals —

  These men one day Laurentum’s land received.

  31

  Concourse of Aeneas and the King of Alba:

  Atilius: The longest line has 17 syllables... the shortest has 12 like this of Ennius —

  To him answer made the King of Alba Longa.

  Aeneas is deified:

  Servius: According to Ennius, he (Romulus) will be reckoned with Aeneas among the gods.

  The story of Ilia:

  Servius goes on: He says that Ilia was a daughter of Aeneas.

  32–48

  The dream of Ilia, daughter of Aeneas, after his death:

  Cicero: in Ennius the famous vestal tells her story —

  When the old woman roused up, had with limbs a-tremble brought a light, then the maid frightened out of sleep, spoke thus in tears:— ‘O daughter of Eurydica, you whom our father loved, now strength and life too leave all my body. For a man of beautiful looks seemed to hurry me away among pleasant sallow-thickets and banks and places strange; so, my own sister, after that did I seem to wander alone, and slow-footed to track and search for you, but to be unable to catch you in my senses: no path made sure my footing. Then it was father who seemed to lift up his voice and speak to me in these words:— “O daughter, first there are hardships to be borne by you; but after that, your fortunes will rise again from a river.” With these words, my own sister, did father suddenly withdraw, and no longer gave himself to my gaze though my heart longed for him; no, even though many a time and with tears did I keep holding out my hands towards the blue precincts of the sky, and called and called him with caressing voice. Then did sleep scarcely leave me all sick at heart.


  Ilia, loved by Mars, gives birth to Romulus and Remus:

  Ovid:

  If a woman should take the Annals (there’s no poem shaggier than they) she will perforce read how Ilia became a mother.

  Servius (supplemented): Naevius and Ennius record that the founder of the city was Romulus, grandson of Aeneas through his daughter.

  49–50

  Ilia, arraigned for her fault, appeals to Venus:

  Nonius: ‘Parumper,’ speedily and quickly.... Ennius in the first book of the Annals —

  ‘Thee, hallowed Venus, thee now the mother of my father, I pray look down on me from heaven a little while, my kinswoman.’

  51

  Ilia appeals also to Tiber:

  Macrobius: ‘And thou, sire Thybris with thy hallowed stream’; Ennius in the first book —

  ‘And thee, Father of the Tiber, with thy hallowed stream,

  52

  Venus answers Ilia’s prayer:

  Charisius: The grammarians would have it that the form ‘neptis’ should not be used... and Ennius is appealed to because he wrote ‘nepos’ as a feminine, thus —

  ‘Ilia, godly granddaughter, the hardships you have borne...

  53–4

  Servius (supplemented), on ‘cetera’ in Virgil: ‘Cetera that is, ‘in ceterum’; and it is an Ennian usage —

  ‘For the rest, take you no care for the boys to whom you gave birth.