Belli ferratos rupit Saturnia postes.”
In the longer passages, Virgil has not merely selected the happiest thoughts and expressions of his predecessor, but in borrowing a great deal from Ennius, he has added much of his own. He has thrown on common images new lights of fancy; he has struck out the finest ideas from ordinary sentiments, and expunged all puerile conceits and absurdities.
Lucretius and Ovid have also frequently availed themselves of the works of Ennius. His description of felling the trees of a forest, in order to fit out a fleet against the Carthaginians, in the seventh book, has been imitated by Statius in the tenth book of the Thebaid. The passage in his sixth satire, in which he has painted the happy situation of a parasite, compared with that of the master of a feast, is copied in Terence’s Phormio[214]. The following beautiful lines have been imitated by innumerable poets, both ancient and modern:
“Jupiter hic risit, tempestatesque serenæ
Riserunt omnes risu Jovis omnipotentis[215].”
Near the commencement of his Annals, Ennius says,
“Audire est operæ pretium, procedere recte
Qui rem Romanam Latiumque augescere vultis;”
which solemn passage has been parodied by Horace, in the second satire of the first book:
“Audire est operæ pretium, procedere recte