in the rapid vehemence of passion or the subtle fluency of persuasion. The fragments of Ennius, on the other hand, scarcely afford sufficient ground for attributing to him a genuine dramatic faculty. But, as the citizen of a republic in which action was first matured in council, and living in the age when public speech first became a recognised power in the State, it was incumbent on him to embody in 'his abstract and chronicle of the time' the speech of the orator no less than the achievement of the soldier. In his estimate of character this power of speech is honoured as the fitting accompaniment of the wisdom of the statesman. In the following lines, for instance, he laments the substitution of military for civil preponderance in public affairs.
Pellitur e medio sapientia, vi geritur res:
Spernitur orator bonus, horridu' miles amatur:
Haut doctis dictis certantes, sed maledictis
Miscent inter sese inimicitiam agitantes;
Non ex jure manu consertum, sed magi' ferro
Rem repetunt, regnumque petunt, vadunt solida vi.[88]
Many lines of the Annals are evidently fragments of speeches. The most remarkable of these passages is one from a speech of Pyrrhus, and is characterised by Cicero as expressing 'sentiments truly regal and worthy of the race of the Acacidae[89].' This fragment, although evincing nothing of the fluency, the passion, or the argumentative subtlety of debate, yet suggests the power of a great orator by its grave authoritative appeal to the moral dignity of man:—
Nec mi aurum posco, nec mi pretium dederitis:
Non cauponantes bellum, sed belligerantes,