Per gentes Italas hominum quæ clara clueret.”
This poet, who has generally received the glorious appellation of the Father of Roman Song, was a native of Rudiæ, a town in Calabria, and lived from the year of Rome 515 to 585[144]. In his early youth he went to Sardinia; and, if Silius Italicus may be believed, he served in the Calabrian levies, which, in the year 538, followed Titus Manlius to the war which he waged in that island against the favourers of the Carthaginian cause[145]. After the termination of the campaign, he continued to live for twelve years in Sardinia[146]. He was at length brought to Rome by Cato, the Censor, who, in 550, visited Sardinia, on returning as quæstor from Africa[147]. At Rome he fixed his residence on the Aventine hill, where he lived in a very frugal manner, having only a single servant maid as an attendant[148]. He instructed, however, the Patrician youth in Greek, and acquired the friendship of many of the most illustrious men in the state. Being distinguished (like Æschylus, the great father of Grecian tragedy) in arms as well as letters, he followed M. Fulvius Nobilior during his expedition to Ætolia in 564[149]; and in 569 he obtained the freedom of the city, through the favour of Quintus Fulvius Nobilior, the son of his former patron, Marcus[150]. He was also protected by the elder Scipio Africanus, whom he is said to have accompanied in all his campaigns:
“Hærebat doctus lateri, castrisque solebat
Omnibus in medias Ennius ire tubas[151].”
It is difficult, however, to see in what expeditions he could have attended this renowned general. His Spanish and African wars were concluded before Ennius was brought from Sardinia to Rome; and the campaign against Antiochus was commenced and terminated while he was serving under Fulvius Nobilior in Ætolia[152]. In his old age he obtained the friendship of Scipio Nasica; and the degree of intimacy subsisting between them has been characterised by the well-known anecdote of their successively feigning to be from home[153]. He is said to have been intemperate in drinking[154], which brought on the disease called Morbus Articularis, a disorder resembling the gout, of which he died at the age of seventy, just after he had exhibited his tragedy of Thyestes:
“Ennius ipse pater dum pocula siccat iniqua,
Hoc vitio tales fertur meruisse dolores[155].”
The evils, however, of old age and indigence were supported by him, as we learn from Cicero, with such patience, and even cheerfulness, that one would almost have imagined he derived satisfaction from circumstances which are usually regarded, as being, of all others, the most dispiriting and oppressive[156]. The honours due to his character and talents were, as is frequently the case, reserved till after his death, when a bust of him was placed in the family tomb of the Scipios[157], who, till the time of Sylla, continued the practice of burying, instead of burning, their dead. In the days of Livy, the bust still remained near that sepulchre, beyond the Porta Capena, along with the statues of Africanus and Scipio Asiaticus.[158] The tomb was discovered in 1780, on a farm situated between the Via Appia and Via Latina. The slabs, which have been since removed to the Vatican, bear several inscriptions, commemorating different persons of the Scipian family. Neither statues, nor any other memorial, then existed of Africanus [pg 66]himself, or of Asiaticus[159]; but a laurelled bust of Pepperino stone, which was found in this tomb, and which now stands on the Sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican, is supposed to be that of Ennius[160]. There is also still extant an epitaph on this poet, reported to have been written by himself[161], strongly characteristic of that overweening conceit and that high estimation of his own talents, which are said to have formed the chief blemish of his character:—
“Aspicite, O cives, senis Ennî imaginis formam;
Hic vestrum panxit maxuma facta patrum.