Et simulant fessos curvata cacumina somnos;
Nec trucibus fluviis idem sonus; occidit horror
Æquoris, et terris maria acclinata quiescunt.”
Horace, in one of his odes, strongly expresses the glory and honour which the Calabrian muse of Ennius had conferred on Scipio by this poem, devoted to his praise:
“Non incendia Carthaginis impiæ,
Ejus qui domita nomen ab Africa
Lucratus rediit, clarius indicant
Laudes quam Calabræ Pierides[198].”
The historical poems of Ennius appear to have been written without the introduction of much machinery or decorative fiction; and whether founded on ancient ballads, according to one opinion[199], or framed conformably to historical truth, according to another[200], they were obviously deficient in those embellishments of imagination which form the distinction between a poem and a metrical chronicle. In the subject which he had chosen, Ennius wanted the poetic advantages of distance in place or of time. It perhaps matters little whether the ground-work of a heroic poem be historical or entirely fictitious, if free scope be given for the excursions of fancy. But, in order that it may sport with advantage, the event must be remote in time or in place; and if this rule be observed, such subjects as those chosen by Camoens or Tasso admit of as much colouring and embellishment as the Faery Queen. It is in this that Lucan and Voltaire have erred; and neither the soaring genius of the one, nor brilliancy of the other, could raise their themes, splendid as they were, from the dust, or steep the mind in those reveries in which we indulge on subjects where there is no visible or known bound to credulity and imaginings. Still the Annals of Ennius, as a national work, were highly gratifying to a proud ambitious people, and, in consequence, continued long popular at Rome. They were highly relished in the age of Horace and Virgil; and, as far down as the time of Marcus Aurelius, they were recited in theatres and other public places for the amusement of the people[201]. The Romans, indeed, were so formed on his style, that Seneca called them populus Ennianus—an Ennian race,—and said, that both Cicero and Virgil were obliged, contrary to their own judgment, to employ antiquated terms, in compliance with the reigning prejudice[202]. From his example, too, added to the national character, the historical epic became in future times the great poetical resource of the Romans, who versified almost every important event in their history. Besides the Pharsalia of Lucan, and Punica of Silius Italicus, which still survive, there were many works of this description which are now lost. Varro Atacinus chose as his subject Cæsar’s war with the Sequani—Varius, the deeds of Augustus and Agrippa—Valgius Rufus, the battle of Actium—Albinovanus, the exploits of Germanicus—Cicero, those of Marius, and the events of his own consulship.
We have already seen Ennius’s imitation of the Greeks in his tragedies and satires; and even in the above-mentioned historical poems, though devoted to the celebration of Roman heroes and subjects exclusively national, he has borrowed copiously from the Greek poets, and has often made his Roman consuls fight over again the Homeric battles. Thus the description of the combat of Ajax, in the 16th Book of the Iliad, beginning Αιας δ’ ουκετ’ ἐμιμνε, has suggested a passage, above quoted, from the fragments of the Istrian war; and the picture of a steed breaking from his stall, and ranging the pastures, is imitated from a similar description, in the 6th Book of the Iliad—