(1) Tragedies.—Mainly translations, especially from Euripides. A few fragments only remain. ‘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.’—Sellar.
(2) Annales.—An Epic Hexameter poem, in 18 books, which dealt with the History of Rome from the landing of Aeneas in Italy down to the Third Macedonian War (Pydna, 168 B.C.). About 600 lines are extant.
‘In his Annals he unfolds a long gallery of national portraits. His heroes are 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.’—Sellar.
3. Style.
For the first time Ennius succeeded in moulding the Latin language to the movement of the Greek hexameter. In spite of imperfections and roughness, his Annals remained the foremost and representative Roman poem till Vergil wrote the Aeneid. Lucretius, whom he influenced, and to whom Vergil owes so much, says of him:
Ennius ut noster cecinit, qui primus amoeno
Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
Per gentes Italas honinum quae clara clueret;
‘As sang our Ennius, the first who brought down from pleasant Helicon a chaplet of unfading leaf, the fame of which should ring out clear through the nations of Italy.’
And later, Quintilian, X. i. 88: ‘Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora iam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem: 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.’—Sellar.