Nor, although Ennius was the first writer who introduced satiric composition into Rome, are his pretensions, in this respect, to originality, very distinguished. He adapted the ancient satires of the Tuscan and Oscan stage to the closet, by refining their grossness, softening their asperity, and introducing railleries borrowed from the Greek poets, with whom he was familiar. His satires thus appear to have been a species of centos made up from passages of various poems, which, by slight alterations, were humorously or satirically applied, and chiefly to the delineation of character: “Carmen,” says Diomedes the grammarian, “quod ex variis poematibus constabat satira vocabatur, quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius.” The fragments which remain of these satires are too short and broken to allow us even to divine their subject. That entitled Asotus vel Sotadicus, is the representation of a luxurious, dissolute man, and was so termed from Sotades, a voluptuous Cretan poet. Quintilian also mentions, that one of his satires contained a Dialogue between Life and Death, contending with each other, a mode of composition suggested perhaps by the celebrated allegory of Prodicus. We are farther informed by Aulus Gellius, that he introduced into another satire, with great skill and beauty, Æsop’s fable of the Larks[179], now well known through the imitation of Fontaine[180]. The lark having built her nest among some early corn, feared that it might be reaped before her young ones were fit to take wing. She therefore desired them to report to her whatever conversation they might hear in the fields during her absence. They first informed her, that the husbandman had come to the spot, and desired his son to summon their neighbours and friends to assist in cutting the crop the next morning. The lark, on [pg 78]hearing this, declares, that there is no occasion to be in any haste in removing. On the following day, it is again reported, that the husbandman had desired that his relations should be requested to assist him; and the lark is still of opinion that there is no necessity to hurry away. At length, however, the young larks relate, that the husbandman had announced that he would execute the work himself. On hearing this, the old lark said it was now time to be gone. She accordingly removed her younglings, and the corn was immediately cut down by the master. From this tale Ennius deduces as the moral,
“Hoc erit tibi argumentum semper in promptu situm;
Ne quid expectes amicos, quod tute agere possis.”
It is certainly much to be regretted that we possess so scanty fragments of these satires, which would have been curious as the first attempts at a species of composition which was carried to such perfection by succeeding Latin poets, and which has been regarded as almost peculiar to the Romans.
The great work, however, of Ennius, and of which we have still considerable remains, was his Annals, or metrical chronicles, devoted to the celebration of Roman exploits, from the earliest periods to the conclusion of the Istrian war. These Annals were written by our poet in his old age; at least, Aulus Gellius informs us, on the authority of Varro, that the twelfth book was finished by him in his sixty-seventh year[181].
It may perhaps appear strange, that, when the fabulous exploits, the superstitions, the characters and the manners, of the heroic ages, were so admirably adapted for poetical imagery, and had been so successfully employed in Greece, the chief work of the Father of Roman Song should have been a sort of versified newspaper, like the Henriade of Voltaire, or the Araucana of Alonco de Ercilla: For in other countries poetry has been earliest devoted to the decoration of those marvels in which the amantes mira Camœnæ chiefly rejoice. In most lands, however, the origin of poetry was coeval with the rise of the nation, and every thing seems wondrous to an ignorant and timid race. The Greeks, in their first poetical age, peopled every grove and lake with fauns and naiads, or personified the primeval powers of nature. They sung the fables concerning their gods, and the exploits of heroes, in [pg 79]those ancient verses which have been combined in the Theogony attributed to Hesiod, and those immortal rhapsodies which have formed the basis of the Homeric poems. The marvellous vision of Dante was the earliest effort of the Italian muse; and some of the first specimens of verse in France and England were wild adventures in love or arms, interspersed with stories of demons and enchanters. But in Rome, though the first effort of the language was in poetry, five hundred years had elapsed from the foundation of the city before this effort was made. At that period, the Romans were a rude but rational race. The locks of Curius were perhaps uncombed; but though the Republic had as yet produced no character of literary elegance, she had given birth to Cincinnatus, and Fabricius, and Camillus. Her citizens had neither been rendered timid nor indolent by their superstitions, but were actively employed in agriculture or in arms. They were a less contemplative and imaginative race than the Greeks. Their spirit was indeed sufficiently warlike; but that peculiar spirit of adventure, (which characterised the early ages of Greece, and the middle ages of modern Europe,) had, if it ever existed, long ago ceased in Rome. By this time, the Roman armies were too well disciplined, and the system of warfare too regular, to admit a description of the picturesque combats of the Greek and Trojan charioteers. Poetry was thus too late in its birth to take a natural flight. In such circumstances, the bard, however rich or lofty might be his conceptions, would not listen to his own taste or inspiration, but select the theme which was likely to prove most popular; and the Romans, being a national and ambitious people, would be more gratified by the jejune relation of their own exploits, than by the speciosa miracula of the most sublime or romantic invention.
The Annals of Ennius were partly founded on those ancient traditions and old heroic ballads, which Cicero, on the authority of Cato’s Origines, mentions as having been sung at feasts by the guests, many centuries before the age of Cato, in praise of the heroes of Rome[182]. Niebuhr has attempted to show, that all the memorable events of Roman history had been versified in ballads, or metrical chronicles, in the Saturnian measure, before the time of Ennius; who, according to him, merely expressed in the Greek hexameter, what his predecessors had delivered in a ruder strain, and then maliciously depreciated these ancient compositions, in order that he himself might be considered as the founder of Roman poetry[183]. [pg 80]The devotion of the Decii, and death of the Fabian family,—the stories of Scævola, Cocles, and Coriolanus,—Niebuhr believes to have been the subjects of romantic ballads. Even Fabius Pictor, according to this author, followed one of these old legends in his narrative concerning Mars and the Wolf, and his whole history of Romulus. Livy, too, in his account of the death of Lucretia, has actually transcribed from one of these productions; since what Sextus says, on entering the chamber of Lucretia, is nearly in the Saturnian measure:—
“Tace, Lucretia, inquit, Sextus Tarquinius sum,
Ferrum in manu est, moriere si emiseris vocem[184].”
But the chief work, according to Niebuhr, from which Ennius borrowed, was a romantic epopee, or chronicle, made up from these heroic ballads about the end of the fourth century of Rome, commencing with the accession of Tarquinius Priscus, and ending with the battle of Regillus. The arrival, says Niebuhr, of that monarch under the name of Lucumo—his exploits and victories—his death—then the history of Servius Tullius—the outrageous pride of Tullia—the murder of the lawful monarch—the fall of the last Tarquin, preceded by a supernatural warning—Lucretia—Brutus and the truly Homeric battle of Regillus—compose an epic, which, in poetical incident, and splendour of fancy, surpasses everything produced in the latter ages of Rome[185]. The battle of Regillus, in particular, as described by the annalists, bears evident marks of its poetical origin. It was not a battle between two hosts, but a struggle of heroes. As in the fights painted in the Iliad, the champions meet in single combat, and turn by individual exertions the tide of victory. The dictator Posthumius wounds King Tarquin, whom he had encountered at the first onset. The Roman knight Albutius engages with the Latin chief Mamilius, but is wounded by him, and forced to quit the field. Mamilius then nearly breaks the Roman line, but is slain by the Consul Herminius, which decides the fate of the day. After the battle of Regillus, all the events are not so completely poetical; but in the siege of Veii we have a representation of the ten years war of Troy. The secret introduction of the troops by Camillus into the middle of the city resembles the story of the wooden horse, and the Etruscan statue of Juno corresponds to the Trojan Palladium[186].