Aut inertes aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat,
Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam,
Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab eis drachmam ipsi petunt[71].
There are passages of the same spirit to be found among the fragments of Pacuvius and Accius.
There is not much indication of speculative thought in any of these fragments. The blunt sentiment which Ennius puts into the mouth of Neoptolemus probably expressed his own mental attitude towards the schools of philosophy—
Philosophari est mihi necesse, at paucis: nam omnino haut placet.
His observations on life are neither of an imaginative, of a deeply reflective, nor of a purely satiric character. Unlike the thoughts of the Greek dramatists, they make no attempt to solve the painful riddle of the world; they want the universality and systematic basis of philosophical truths; they are expressed neither with the pointed wit nor with the ironical humour of satire. They are the maxims of a strong common sense and the dictates of a grave rectitude of will. They are practical, not speculative. They have their origin in a sense of duty rather than of consequences. They are in conformity with the ideal realised in the best types of Roman character; and they bear witness to the sterling worth combined with the ardent enthusiasm, and the practical sense united to the strong imagination of the poet.
Such appear to be the chief attributes of genius and imaginative sentiment, and the chief moral and intellectual features indicated in the fragments of Ennius. It is not indeed possible, from the tenor of single passages, to judge of the composition of a whole drama or of a continuous book of the Annals. No single scene or speech can afford sufficient grounds for inferring the amount of creative power with which his characters were conceived and sustained in all their complex relations. Yet enough has appeared in these fragments, which, from the accidental mode of their preservation, must be regarded as the ordinary samples and not chosen specimens of his style, to confirm the ancient belief in his pre-eminence and to determine the prevailing characteristics of his genius. There is ample evidence of the great popularity which he enjoyed among his countrymen, and of the high estimate which many of the best Roman writers formed of his power. It is recorded that great crowds ('magna frequentia') attended the public reading of the Annals. Virgil was said to have introduced many lines into the Aeneid, with the view of pleasing a public devoted to Ennius ('populus Ennianus'). The title of Ennianista was assumed by a public reader of the Annals in the time of Hadrian, when there was a strong revival of admiration for the older literature of Rome[72]. Cicero often speaks of the poet as 'noster Ennius,' and quotes him with all the signs of hearty admiration and affection. The numerous references in his works to the Annals and the Tragedies imply also a thorough familiarity with these poems on the part of the readers for whom his philosophical and rhetorical treatises were written. The criticism of Quintilian, 'Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora jam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem[73],' expresses a sentiment of traditional reverence as well as of personal appreciation. Aulus Gellius, a writer of the time of Hadrian, often quotes and comments upon him with hearty and genial sympathy. The greatest among the Roman poets also, directly and indirectly, acknowledge their admiration. The strong testimony of Lucretius is alone sufficient to establish the fame of Ennius as a man of remarkable force and genius. The spirit of the Annals still lives in the antique charm and national feeling which make the epic poem of Virgil the truest representation of Roman sentiment which has come down to modern times. By Ovid he is characterised as—
Ennius, ingenio maximus, arte rudis.