Any period of history may be thus exhibited in the form of an epic cycle; and, though there can be little doubt of the [pg 81]existence of ancient Saturnian ballads at Rome, I do not think that Niebuhr has adduced sufficient proof or authority for his magnificent epopee, commencing with the accession of Tarquin, and ending with the battle of Regillus. With regard to the accusation against Ennius, of depreciating the ancient materials which he had employed, it is founded on the contempt which he expresses for the verses of the Fauns and the Prophets. His obligations, if he owed any, he has certainly nowhere acknowledged, at least in the fragments which remain; and he rather betrays an anxiety, at the commencement of his poem, to carry away the attention of the reader from the Saturnian muses, and direct it to the Grecian poets,—to Pindus, and the nymphs of Helicon.
He begins his Annals with an invocation to the nine Muses, and the account of a vision in which Homer had appeared to him, and related the story of the metamorphosis already mentioned:—
“Visus Homerus adesse poeta:
Hei mihi qualis erat, quantum mutatus ab illo!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Septingenti sunt, paulo plus vel minus, anni
Quom memini fieri me pavom.”
Ennius afterwards invokes a great number of the Gods, and then proceeds to the history of the Alban kings. The dream of the Vestal Virgin Ilia, which announced her pregnancy by Mars, and the foundation of Rome, is related in verses of considerable beauty and smoothness, by Ilia to her sister Eurydice.—
“Talia commemorat lacrumans, exterrita somno;
‘Euridica prognata, pater quam noster amavit,