Several Latin writers extol the elegant lines of Ennius immediately following, in which the Roman soldiers, alluding to its magnificent revival in Rome, exclaim with enthusiasm, that Ilium could not be destroyed;
“Quai neque Dardaneeis campeis potuere perire,
Nec quom capta capei, nec quom combusta cremari[194];”
a passage which has been closely imitated in the seventh book of Virgil:
“Num Sigeis occumbere campis,
Num capti potuere capi: num incensa cremavit
Troja viros?”
The fifteenth book related the expedition of Fulvius Nobilior to Ætolia, which Ennius himself is said to have accompanied. In the two following books he prosecuted the Istrian war; which concludes with the following animated description of a single hero withstanding the attack of an armed host:—
“Undique conveniunt, velut imber, tela Tribuno.
Configunt parmam, tinnit hastilibus umbo,