The Roman Poets of the Republic, 2nd edition

by W. Y. Sellar

He has been exposed to more serious detraction in modern times, as the corrupter of the pure stream of early Roman poetry. It is alleged against him by Niebuhr, that through jealousy he suppressed the ballad and epic poetry of the early bards. The answer to this charge has already been given. There is no evidence to prove that any such poems were in existence in the time of Ennius. By other modern scholars he is disadvantageously compared with Naevius, who is held up to admiration as the last of the genuine Roman minstrels. Naevius appears indeed to have been a remarkable and original man, yet his very scanty fragments do not afford sufficient evidence to justify the reversal of the verdict of antiquity on the relative greatness and importance of the two poets. The old Roman party, in opposition to whom Ennius and his friends are supposed to have introduced the new taste and suppressed the old, never showed any zeal in favour of poetry of any kind. Cato, their only literary representative, wrote prose treatises on antiquities and agriculture, and in one of his speeches reproached Fulvius Nobilior for the consideration which he showed to Ennius. The evidence of these epic and dramatic fragments which have just been considered, is all in favour of the high verdict of antiquity on the importance and pre-eminence of the author of the Annals. Whatever in the later poets is most truly Roman in sentiment and morality appears to be conceived in the spirit of Ennius.

He stands out prominently in that early time as a man of true genius, and of a strong and original character. His lot was not cast, like that of the Augustan poets, in the midst of a refined and courtly society, with all the aids and appliances of literary leisure, and in secure exemption from any harsh collision with the world. Neither was he a poetical artist, like Catullus, yielding himself up to the enjoyment of beauty, and reproducing in his verse the charm which he had found in life, in Nature, and in earlier art. His poetry was the serious product of a manly and energetic life, and of a vital interest in the great affairs of his time. Till middle life he is dimly discerned as an obscure Messapian soldier, claiming descent from an old race of kings, and a stranger to the great city which in after times regarded him as the father of her literature. In mature manhood, and in a kindly old age, he is seen exercising a constant literary industry in manifold ways, living plainly and in cheerful independence, applauded by his fellow-citizens, and honoured by the friendship of the greatest among his contemporaries.

The variety and extent of his works bear witness to remarkable learning, as well as a strong productive energy. With a wide knowledge of Greek literature, he combined the heart and will of a Roman; and to the study of the best books he added a close contact with men. Expressions in his remains indicate the opposite religious feelings and convictions of a mystic and a sceptic. In his temper and character a high self-consciousness appears united with a true simplicity and hearty appreciation of others, and a great gravity of tone and purpose with a cheerful and sanguine spirit. His moral sympathies are most deeply moved by such qualities as fortitude, magnanimity, and practical wisdom; and the transparent sincerity of his words gives assurance that he himself was formed out of the same true metal which he recognised in 'the old manners and men' of his adopted country.

In his poetry he represented the traditions and the steady continuous growth of the Roman State, and expressed the confidence which the people reposed in their destiny, their institutions, and their leading men. His dramas, although founded on Greek models, and dealing with Greek legends and personages, yet had a real national air in the type of character they presented, in the sentiments they expressed, and in the lessons of life they inculcated. His epic poem was in form, spirit, and substance, inspired by the genius of his country, and was finished with the strong and massive execution of Roman workmanship[121]. While discarding the native Saturnian measure, as unequal to the elevated tone of a long narrative poem, he moulded the Latin language to the conditions of a new metre, which, in later times, was successfully wrought into the most expressive organ of the majesty of Rome. In his reproduction of the Homeric mythology, he has embodied the idea of the national destiny. The characteristic sentiment of his poetry indicates his affinity not to Homer and Sophocles, but to Lucretius and Virgil. There are gleams also of true creative power in these fragments. If wanting in the fine accomplishment and the contemplative faculty of a poetic artist, he seems to have possessed a strength and energy of conception unsurpassed by any of his successors. He was endowed also with that living power which gives new meaning to familiar things; which, without distorting or exaggerating the truth, discerns and reveals the glory and grandeur in the actual march of events.

[48] Parco admodum sumptu contentus et unius ancillae ministerio.

[49] xvii. 17.

[50] Livy xxxviii. 17.

[51] 'When the Carthaginians were coming from all sides to the conflict, and all things, beneath high heaven, confounded by the hurry and tumult of war, shook with alarm: and men were in doubt to which of the two the empire of the whole world, by land and sea, should fall.'—Lucret. iii. 833-7.

[52] Mommsen, book iii. ch. 5.

[53] The author of Caesar's Spanish War quotes Ennius in his account of the critical moment in the Battle of Munda:—'Hic, ut ait Ennius, "pes pede premitur, armis teruntur arma."' Bell. Hisp. xxxi.