Hic vestrum panxit maxima facta patrum:
and again, apparently at the opening of the poem, he wrote,—
Latos per populos terrasque poemata nostra
Clara cluebunt.
At its conclusion, he claimed for his old age the repose due to a brave and triumphant career. He composed the eighteenth book, the last, in his sixty-seventh year, three years before his death[85]. The great length to which the poem extended, and the vast amount of materials which it embraced, imply a long and steady concentration of his powers on the task. It was one requiring much learning as well as original conception. The fragments of the poem afford proofs of a familiarity with Homer, and of acquaintance with the Cyclic poets[86]. It is impossible to say how much of the early Roman history, as it has come down to modern times, is due to the diligence of Ennius in collecting, and to his genius in giving life to the traditions and ancient records of Rome. He was certainly the earliest writer who gathered them up, and united them in a continuous narrative. The work accomplished by him required not only the antiquarian lore of a man
Multa tenens, antiqua, sepulta,
and the power of imagination to give a new shape to the past, but an intimate knowledge of the great events and the great men of his own time, and a sympathetic insight into the spirit by which they were animated.
The poem was written in eighteen books. Of these books about six hundred lines have been preserved in fragments, varying from about twenty lines to half a line in length. From the minuteness with which comparatively unimportant matters are described, it is inferred that the separate books extended to a much greater length than those either of the Iliad or of the Aeneid. Of the first book there remain about 120 lines, including the dream of Ilia in seventeen lines, and the auspices of Romulus in twenty lines. In it were narrated the mythical events from the time
Quum veter occubuit Priamus sub marte Pelasgo,
to the death and deification of Romulus;