The Medea of Ennius was a popular drama at Rome, and was considered one of the best productions of its author. Cicero asks, if there be any one such a foe to the Roman name, as to reject or despise the Medea of Ennius. From the romantic interest of the subject, Medea was the heroine of not less than four epic poems; and no fable, of Greek antiquity, was more frequently dramatized by the Latin poets. Attius, Varro, Ovid, and Seneca, successively imitated the tragedy of Ennius, and improved on their model.
Phœnix.—There were two persons of this name in mythological story. One the son of Agenor, and brother of Cadmus, who gave name to Phœnicia; the other the preceptor of Achilles, who accompanied that hero to the Trojan war. The only reason for supposing that the tragedy of Ennius related to this latter person is, that a play founded on some part of his life was written by Euripides, from whom the Roman poet has borrowed so much.
Telamon.—This play, of which no Greek original is known, seems to have been devoted to a representation of the misfortunes of Telamon, particularly the concluding period of his life, in which he heard of the death of his eldest son Ajax, and the exile of his second son Teucer. To judge from the fragments which remain, it must have been by far the finest drama of Ennius. He thus happily versifies the celebrated sentiment of Anaxagoras, and puts it into the mouth of Telamon, when he hears of the death of his son—
“Ego quom genui, tum moriturum scivi, et ei rei sustuli;
Præterea ad Trojam quom misi ad defendendam Græciam,
Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere[175].”
Ennius being an inhabitant of Magna Græcia, probably held the Tuscan soothsayers and diviners in great contempt. [pg 75]There is a long passage cited by the grammarians as from this tragedy, (but which, I think, must rather have belonged to his satires,) directed against that learned body, and calculated to give them considerable offence—
“Non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem,
Non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos,
Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somniûm: