Chapter III: Part 3

Little, however, except the titles, remains to us, from the dramas of Livius. The longest passage we possess in connection, extends only to four lines. It forms part of a hymn to Diana, recited by the chorus, in the tragedy of _Ino_, and contains an animated exhortation to a person about to proceed to the chase:—

“Et jam purpureo suras include cothurno,
Baltheus et revocet volucres in pectore sinus;
Pressaque jam gravida crepitent tibi terga pharetra:
Dirige odorisequos ad cæca cubilia canes(121).”

This passage testifies the vast improvement effected by Livius on the Latin Tongue; and indeed the polish of the language and metrical correctness of these hexameter lines, have of late led to a suspicion that they are not the production of a period so ancient as the age of Livius(122), or at least that they have been modernised by some later hand. With this earliest offspring of the Latin muse, it may be curious to compare a production from her last age of decrepitude. Nemesianus, in his _Cynegeticon_, has closely imitated this passage while exhorting Diana to prepare for the chase:

“Sume habitus, arcumque manu; pictamque pharetram
Suspende ex humeris; sint aurea tela, sagittæ;
Candida puniceis aptentur crura cothurnis:
Sit chlamys aurato multum subtemine lusa,
Corrugesque sinus gemmatis baltheus artet
Nexibus ——”

As the above-quoted verses in the chorus of the _Ino_ are the only passage among the fragments of Livius, from which a connected meaning can be elicited, we must take our opinion of his poetical merits from those who judged of them while his writings were yet wholly extant. Cicero has pronounced an unfavourable decision, declaring that they scarcely deserved a second perusal(123). They long, however, continued popular in Rome, and were read by the youths in schools even during the Augustan age of poetry. It is evident, indeed, that during that golden period of Roman literature, there prevailed a taste corresponding to our black-letter rage, which led to an inordinate admiration of the works of Livius, and to the bitter complaints of Horace, that they should be extolled as perfect, or held up by old pedants to the imitation of youth in an age when so much better models existed:

“Non equidem insector, delendaque carmina Livi
Esse reor, memini quæ plagosum mihi parvo
Orbilium dictare; sed emendata videri,
Pulchraque, et exactis minimum distantia, miror:
Inter quæ verbum emicuit si forte decorum, et
Si versus paulo concinnior unus et alter;
Injuste totum ducit venditque poema(124).”

But although Livius may have been too much read in the schools, and too much admired in an age, which could boast of models so greatly superior to his writings, he is at least entitled to praise, as the inventor among the Romans of a species of poetry which was afterwards carried by them to much higher perfection. By translating the Odyssey, too, into Latin verse, he adopted the means which, of all others, was most likely to foster and improve the infant literature of his country—as he thus presented it with an image of the most pure and perfect taste, and at the same time with those wild and romantic adventures, which are best suited to attract the sympathy and interest of a half-civilized nation. This happy influence could not be prevented even by the use of the rugged Saturnian verse, which led Cicero to compare the translation of Livius to the ancient statues, which might be attributed to Dædalus(125).

The Latin Odyssey commenced—

“Virum mihi, Camena, insece versutum.”

There have also been three lines preserved by Festus, which are translated from the 8th Book, expressing the effects produced on the mind by a sea-storm—

—— “Namque nilum pejus
Macerat hemonem quamde mare sævom: vires quoi
Sunt magnæ, topper confringent importunæ undæ(126).”

From the æra in which the dramatic productions of Livius appeared, theatrical representations formed the object of a peculiar art. The more regular drama, founded on that of Magna Græcia, or Sicily, being divided into tragedy and comedy, became, in a great measure, the province of professional players or authors, while the Roman youths of distinction continued to amuse themselves with the _Fabulæ Atellanæ_, and _Exodia_, a species of satirical medley, derived from the ancient Etruscans, or from the Osci, the nature and progress of which I shall hereafter have occasion more particularly to examine.

CNEIUS NÆVIUS,

A native of Campania, was the first imitator of the regular dramatic works which had been produced by Livius Andronicus. He served in the first Punic war, and his earliest plays were represented at Rome in the year 519(127). The names of his tragedies, from which as few fragments remain as from those of Livius, are still preserved:—_Alcestis_, (from which there is yet extant a description of old age in rugged and barbarous verse)—_Danae_, _Dulorestes_, _Hesiona_, _Hector_, _Iphigenia_, _Lycurgus_, _Phœnissæ_, _Protesilaus_, and _Telephus_. All these were translated, or closely imitated from the works of Euripides, Anaxandrides, and other Greek dramatists. Cicero commends a passage in the _Hector_, one of the above-mentioned tragedies(128), where the hero of the piece, delighted with the praises which he had received from his father Priam, exclaims—

“—— Lætus sum
Laudari me abs te, pater, laudato viro(129).”

Nævius, however, was accounted a better comic than tragic poet. Cicero has given us some specimens of his jests, with which that celebrated wit and orator appears to have been greatly amused; but they consist rather in unexpected turns of expression, or a play of words, than in genuine humour. One of these, recorded in the second Book _De Oratore_, has found its way into our jest-books; and though one of the best in Cicero, it is one of the worst of Joe Miller. It is the saying of a knavish servant, “that nothing was shut up from him in his master’s house”.—“Solum esse, cui domi nihil sit nec obsignatum, nec occlusum: Quod idem,” adds Cicero, “in bono servo dici solet, sed hoc iisdem etiam verbis.”

Unfortunately for Nævius, he did not always confine himself in his comedies to such inoffensive jests. The dramas of Magna Græcia and Sicily, especially those of Epicharmus, were the prototypes of the older Greek comedy; and accordingly the most ancient Latin plays, particularly those of Nævius, which were formed on the same school, though there be no evidence that they ridiculed political events, partook of the personal satire and invective which pervaded the productions of Aristophanes. If, as is related, the comedies of Nævius were directed against the vices and corporal defects of the Consuls and Senators of Rome, he must have been the most original of the Latin comic poets, and infinitely more so than Plautus or Terence; since although he may have parodied or copied the dramatic fables of the ancient Greek or Sicilian comedies, the spirit and colouring of the particular scenes must have been his own. The elder Scipio was one of the chief objects of his satiric representations, and the poetic severity with which Aristophanes persecuted Socrates or Euripides, was hardly more indecent and misdirected than the sarcasms of Nævius against the greatest captain, the most accomplished scholar, and the most virtuous citizen of his age. Some lines are still extant, in which he lampooned Scipio on account of a youthful amour, in which he had been detected by his father—

“Etiam qui res magnas manu sæpe gessit gloriose,
Cujus facta viva nunc vigent, qui apud gentes solus
Præstat, eum suus pater, cum pallio uno, ab amicâ abduxit.”

The conqueror of Hannibal treated these libels with the same indifference with which Cæsar afterwards regarded the lines of Catullus. Nævius, however, did not long escape with impunity. Rome was a very different sort of republic from Athens: It was rather an aristocracy than a democracy, and its patricians were not always disposed to tolerate the taunts and insults which the chiefs of the Greek democracy were obliged to endure. Nævius had said in one of his verses, that the patrician family of the Metelli had frequently obtained the Consulship before the age permitted by law, and he insinuated that they had been promoted to this dignity, not in consequence of their virtues, but the cruelty of the Roman fate:

“Fato Metelli Romæ fiunt Consules.”

With the assistance of the other patricians, the Metelli retorted his sarcasms in a Saturnian stanza, not unlike the measure of some of our old ballads, in which they threatened to play the devil with their witty persecutor—

“Et Nævio Poetæ,
Cum sæpe læderentur,
Dabunt malum Metelli,
Dabunt malum Metelli,
Dabunt malum Metelli.”

The Metelli, however, did not confine their vengeance to this ingenious and spirited satire, in the composition of which, it may be presumed that the whole Roman Senate was engaged. On account of the unceasing abuse and reproaches which he had uttered against them, and other chief men of the city, he was thrown into prison, where he wrote his comedies, the _Hariolus_ and _Leontes_. These plays being in some measure intended as a recantation of his former invectives, he was liberated by the tribunes of the people.(130) He soon, however, relapsed into his former courses, and continued to persecute the nobility in his dramas and satires with such implacable dislike, that he was at length driven from Rome by their influence, and having retired to Utica(131), he died there, in the year 550, according to Cicero(132); but Varro fixes his death somewhat later. Before leaving Rome, he had composed the following epitaph on himself, which Gellius remarks is full of Campanian arrogance; though the import of it, he adds, might be allowed to be true, had it been written by another(133);

“Mortales immortales flere si foret fas,
Flerent divæ Camœnæ Nævium poetam;
Itaque postquam est Orcino traditus thesauro,
Oblitei sunt Romæ loquier Latina lingua(134).”

Besides his comedies and the above epitaph, Nævius was also author of the Cyprian Iliad, a translation from a Greek poem, called the _Cyprian Epic_. Aristotle, in the 23d chapter of his Poetics, mentions the original work, (τα κυπρια,) which, he says, had furnished many subjects for the drama. Some writers, particularly Pindar, have attributed this Greek poem to Homer; and there was long an idle story current, that he had given it as a portion to his daughter Arsephone. Herodotus, in his second Book, concludes, after some critical discussion, that it was not written by Homer, but that it was doubtless the work of a contemporary poet, or one who lived shortly after him. Heyne thinks it most probable, that it was by a poet called Stasinus, a native of the island of Cyprus, and that it received its name from the country of its author(135). Whoever may have written this Cyprian Epic, it contained twelve books, and was probably a work of amorous and romantic fiction. It commenced with the nuptials of Thetis and Peleus—it related the contention of the three goddesses on Mount Ida—the fables concerning Palamedes—the story of the daughters of Anius—and the love adventures of the Phrygian fair during the early period of the siege of Troy—and it terminated with the council of the gods, at which it was resolved that Achilles should be withdrawn from the war, by sowing dissension between him and Atrides(136).

A metrical chronicle, which chiefly related the events of the first Punic war, was another, and probably the last work of Nævius, since Cicero says, that in writing it he filled up the leisure of his latter days with wonderful complacency and satisfaction(137). It was originally undivided; but, after his death, was separated into seven books(138).—Although the first Punic war was the principal subject, as appears from its announcement,

“Qui terräi Latiäi hemones tuserunt
Vires fraudesque Poinicas fabor;”

yet it also afforded a rapid sketch of the preceding incidents of Roman history. It commenced with the flight of Æneas from Carthage, in a ship built by Mercury(139); and the early wars of the Romans were detailed in the first and second books. To judge by the fragments which remain, the whole work appears to have been full of mythological machinery. Macrobius informs us, that some lines of this production described the Romans tost by a tempest, and represented Venus complaining of the hardships which they suffered to Jupiter, who consoles her by a prospect of their future glory—a passage which probably suggested those verses in the first book of the Æneid, where Venus, in like manner, complains to Jupiter of the danger experienced by her son in a storm, and the god consoles her by assurances of his ultimate prosperity(140). Cicero mentions, that Ennius, too, though he classes Nævius among the fauns and rustic bards, had borrowed, or, if he refused to acknowledge his obligations, had pilfered, many ornaments from his predecessor(141). In the same passage, Cicero, while he admits that Ennius was the more elegant and correct writer, bears testimony to the merit of the older bard, and declares, that the Punic war of this antiquated poet afforded him a pleasure as exquisite as the finest statue that was ever formed by Myron. To judge, however, from the lines which remain, though in general too much broken to enable us even to divine their meaning, the style of Nævius in this work was more rugged and remote from modern Latin than that of his own plays and satires, or the dramas of Livius Andronicus.

The whole, too, is written in the rough, unmodulated, Saturnian verse—a sort of irregular iambics, said to have been originally employed by Faunus and the prophets, who delivered their oracles in this measure. To such rude and unpolished verses Ennius alludes in a fragment of his Annals, while explaining his reasons for not treating of the first Punic war—

—— “Scripsere alii rem
Versibus, quos olim Fauni, vatesque canebant;
Cum neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat,
Nec dicti studiosus erat.”

As this was the most ancient species of measure employed in Roman poetry, as it was universally used before the melody of Greek verse was poured on the Roman ear, and as, from ancient practice, the same strain continued to be repeated till the age of Ennius, by whom the heroic measure was introduced, it would not be suitable to omit some notice of its origin and structure in an account of Roman literature and poetry.

Several writers have supposed that the Saturnian measure was borrowed by the Romans from the Greeks(142), having been used by Euripides, and particularly by Archilochus; but others have believed that it was an invention of the ancient Italians(143). It was first employed in the Carmen Saliare, songs of triumph, supplications to the gods, or monumental inscriptions, and was afterwards, as we have seen, adopted in the works of Livius Andronicus and Nævius. In consequence of the fragments which remain of the Saturnian verses being so short and corrupted, it is extremely difficult to fix their regular measure, or reduce them to one standard of versification. Herman seems to consider a Saturnian line as having regularly consisted of two iambuses, an amphibrachys, and three trochaës—

˘ _ | ˘ _ | ˘ _ ˘ | _ ˘ | _ ˘ | _ ˘

A dactyl, however, was occasionally admitted into the place of the first or second trochaë, and a spondee was not unfrequently introduced indiscriminately. It also appears that a Saturnian line was sometimes divided into two—the first line consisting of the two iambuses and amphibrachys, and the second of the trochaës, whence the Saturnian verse has been sometimes called iambic, and at others trochaic.

The Hexameter verse, which had been invented by the Greeks, was first introduced into Latium, or at least, was first employed in a work of any extent, by

ENNIUS,

—— “Qui primus amœno
Detulit ex Helicone perenni fronde coronam,
Per gentes Italas hominum quæ clara clueret.”

This poet, who has generally received the glorious appellation of the Father of Roman Song, was a native of Rudiæ, a town in Calabria, and lived from the year of Rome 515 to 585(144). In his early youth he went to Sardinia; and, if Silius Italicus may be believed, he served in the Calabrian levies, which, in the year 538, followed Titus Manlius to the war which he waged in that island against the favourers of the Carthaginian cause(145). After the termination of the campaign, he continued to live for twelve years in Sardinia(146). He was at length brought to Rome by Cato, the Censor, who, in 550, visited Sardinia, on returning as quæstor from Africa(147). At Rome he fixed his residence on the Aventine hill, where he lived in a very frugal manner, having only a single servant maid as an attendant(148). He instructed, however, the Patrician youth in Greek, and acquired the friendship of many of the most illustrious men in the state. Being distinguished (like Æschylus, the great father of Grecian tragedy) in arms as well as letters, he followed M. Fulvius Nobilior during his expedition to Ætolia in 564(149); and in 569 he obtained the freedom of the city, through the favour of Quintus Fulvius Nobilior, the son of his former patron, Marcus(150). He was also protected by the elder Scipio Africanus, whom he is said to have accompanied in all his campaigns:

“Hærebat doctus lateri, castrisque solebat
Omnibus in medias Ennius ire tubas(151).”

It is difficult, however, to see in what expeditions he could have attended this renowned general. His Spanish and African wars were concluded before Ennius was brought from Sardinia to Rome; and the campaign against Antiochus was commenced and terminated while he was serving under Fulvius Nobilior in Ætolia(152). In his old age he obtained the friendship of Scipio Nasica; and the degree of intimacy subsisting between them has been characterised by the well-known anecdote of their successively feigning to be from home(153). He is said to have been intemperate in drinking(154), which brought on the disease called _Morbus Articularis_, a disorder resembling the gout, of which he died at the age of seventy, just after he had exhibited his tragedy of Thyestes:

“Ennius ipse pater dum pocula siccat iniqua,
Hoc vitio tales fertur meruisse dolores(155).”

The evils, however, of old age and indigence were supported by him, as we learn from Cicero, with such patience, and even cheerfulness, that one would almost have imagined he derived satisfaction from circumstances which are usually regarded, as being, of all others, the most dispiriting and oppressive(156). The honours due to his character and talents were, as is frequently the case, reserved till after his death, when a bust of him was placed in the family tomb of the Scipios(157), who, till the time of Sylla, continued the practice of burying, instead of burning, their dead. In the days of Livy, the bust still remained near that sepulchre, beyond the _Porta Capena_, along with the statues of Africanus and Scipio Asiaticus.(158) The tomb was discovered in 1780, on a farm situated between the Via Appia and Via Latina. The slabs, which have been since removed to the Vatican, bear several inscriptions, commemorating different persons of the Scipian family. Neither statues, nor any other memorial, then existed of Africanus himself, or of Asiaticus(159); but a laurelled bust of Pepperino stone, which was found in this tomb, and which now stands on the Sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus in the Vatican, is supposed to be that of Ennius(160). There is also still extant an epitaph on this poet, reported to have been written by himself(161), strongly characteristic of that overweening conceit and that high estimation of his own talents, which are said to have formed the chief blemish of his character:—

“Aspicite, O cives, senis Ennî imaginis formam;
Hic vestrum panxit maxuma facta patrum.
Nemo me lacrumis decoret, nec funera fletu
Faxit—cur? volito vivus per ora virûm(162).”

The lines formerly quoted(163), which were written by Nævius for his tomb-stone, express as high a sense of his own poetical merits as the above verses; but there is in them something plaintive and melancholy, quite different from the triumphant exultation in the epitaph of Ennius.

To judge by the fragments of his works which remain, Ennius greatly surpassed his predecessors, not only in poetical genius, but in the art of versification. By his time, indeed, the best models of Greek composition had begun to be studied at Rome. Ennius particularly professed to have imitated Homer, and tried to persuade his countrymen that the soul and genius of that great poet had revived in him, through the medium of a peacock, according to the process of Pythagorean transmigration. It is to this fantastic genealogy that Persius has alluded in his 6th satire:—

“Cor jubet hoc Enni, postquam destertuit esse
Mæonides Quintus, pavone ex Pythagoreo.”

From the following lines of Lucretius it would appear, that Ennius somewhere in his works had feigned that the shade of Homer appeared to him, and explained to him the nature and laws of the universe:—

“Etsi præterea tamen esse Acherusia Templa
Ennius æternis exponit versibus edens;
Quo neque permanent animæ, neque corpora nostra,
Sed quædam simulacra modis pallentia miris:
Unde, sibi exortam, semper florentis Homeri
Commemorat speciem, lacrumas effundere salsas
Cœpisse, et rerum naturam expandere dictis.”

Accordingly, we find in the fragments of Ennius many imitations of the Iliad and Odyssey. It is, however, the Greek tragic writers whom Ennius has chiefly imitated; and indeed it appears from the fragments which remain, that all his plays were rather translations from the dramas of Sophocles and Euripides, on the same subjects which he has chosen, than original tragedies. They are founded on the old topics of Priam and Paris, Hector and Hecuba; and truly Ennius, as well as most other Latin tragedians, seems to have anticipated Horace’s maxim—

“Rectus Iliacum carmen deducis in actus,
Quamsi proferres ignota indictaque primus.”

But although it be quite clear that all the plays of Ennius were translated, or closely imitated, from the Greek, there is occasionally some difficulty in fixing on the drama which was followed, and also in ascertaining whether there be any original passage whatever in the Latin imitation. This difficulty arises from the practice adopted by the Greek dramatists, of new modelling their tragedies. Euripides, in particular, sometimes altered his plays after their first representation, in order to accommodate them to the circumstances of the times, and to obviate the sarcastic criticisms of Aristophanes, who had frequently exposed whole scenes to ridicule. With such views, considerable changes were made on _Iphigenia in Aulis_, the _Hippolytus_, and _Medea_. Euripides is the author from whom Ennius has chiefly borrowed the fables of his tragedies; and when Sophocles and Euripides have treated the same subject, the latter poet has been uniformly preferred. Not one of the dramas of Ennius has been imitated from Æschylus. The reason of this is sufficiently obvious: The plays of Æschylus have little involution of plot, and are rather what we should now term dramatic sketches, than tragedies. The plots of Sophocles are more complex than those of Æschylus; but the tragedies of Euripides are the most involved of all. Now, it may be presumed, that a tragedy crowded with action, and filled with the bustle of a complicated fable, was best adapted to the taste of the Romans, because we _know_ that this was their taste in comedy. Plautus combined two Greek comedies to form one Latin; and the representation of the Hecyra of Terence, the only Latin play formed on the simple Greek model, was repeatedly abandoned by the people before it was concluded, for the sake of amusements of more tumult and excitement.

Of _Achilles_, which, in alphabetical order, is the first of the plays of Ennius, there are just extant seven lines, which have been preserved by Nonius and Festus; and from such remains it is impossible to know what part of the life or actions of the Grecian hero Ennius had selected as the subject of his plot. There were many Greek tragedies on the story of Achilles, of which, one by Aristarchus of Tegea, was the most celebrated, and is supposed to have been that from which Ennius copied.

_Ajax_. Sophocles was author of two tragedies founded on the events of the life of Ajax;—_Ajax Flagellifer_, and _Ajax Locrensis_. The first turns on the phrensy with which the Grecian hero was seized, on being refused the arms of Achilles, and it may be conjectured, from a single fragment, apparently at the very close of the tragedy by Ennius, and which describes the attendants raising the body of Ajax, streaming with blood, that this was the piece translated by the Roman poet.

_Alcmæon_. This play, of which the fable closely resembles the story of Orestes, has by some been attributed to the Latin poet Quintus Catulus. The transports of Alcmæon had been frequently exhibited on the Greek stage(164). The drama of Ennius was taken from a tragedy of Euripides, which is now lost, but its subject is well known from the Thebaid of Statius. The soothsayer Amphiaraus, foreseeing that he would perish at the siege of Thebes, concealed himself from the crimps of those days; but his wife, Eryphile, who alone knew the place of his retreat, being bribed by the gift of a mantle and necklace, revealed the secret to one of the “Seven before Thebes,” who compelled him to share in the expedition. Before death, the prophet enjoined his son, Alcmæon, to avenge him on his faithless wife. The youth, in compliance with this pious command, slew his mother, and was afterwards tormented by the Furies, who would only be appeased by a gift of the whole _paraphernalia_ of Eryphile, which were accordingly hung up in their temple. As soon as their persecution ceased, he married the fair Calirrhoe, daughter of Achelous, and precipitately judging that the consecrated necklace would be better bestowed on his beautiful bride than on the beldame by whom he had so long been haunted, he contrived, on false pretences, to purloin it from the place where it was deposited; but the Furies were not to be so choused out of their perquisites, and in consequence of his rash preference, Alcmæon was compelled to suffer a renewed phrensy, and to undergo a fresh course of expiatory ceremonies(165).

_Alexander_ (_Paris_). The plot of this play hinges on the destruction of Troy. The passages which remain are a heavenly admonition to Priam on the crimes of his son, a lamentation for the death of Hector, and a prediction of Cassandra concerning the wooden horse. Planck, in his recent edition of the _Medea_ of Ennius, while he does not deny that our poet may have written a tragedy with the title of _Alexander_, is of opinion that the fragments quoted as from this play in the editions of Ennius belong properly to his _Alexandra_ (_Cassandra_), to which subject they are perfectly applicable. This German critic has also collected a good many fragments belonging to the _Cassandra_, which had been omitted in Columna and Merula’s editions of Ennius. The longest of these passages, delivered by Cassandra in the style of a prophecy, seems to refer to events previous to the Trojan war—the judgment of Paris, and arrival of Helen from Sparta.

_Andromache_. It is uncertain from what Greek writer this tragedy has been translated. It seems to be founded on the lamentable story of Andromache, who fell, with other Trojan captives, to the share of Neoptolemus, and saw her only son, Astyanax, torn from her embraces, to be precipitated from the summit of a tower, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle. Among the fragments of this play, we possess one of the longest passages extant of the works of Ennius, containing a pathetic lamentation of Andromache for the fall and conflagration of Troy, with a comparison between its smoking ruins and former splendour. This passage Cicero styles, “Præclarum Carmen!”—“Est enim,” he adds, “et rebus, et verbis, et modis lugubre(166).”

—— “Quid petam
Præsidi aut exsequar? quo nunc aut exilio aut fuga freta sim?
Arce et urbe orba sum; quo accidam? quo applicem?
Cui nec aræ patriæ domi stant; fractæ et disjectæ jacent,
Fana flamma deflagrata; tosti alti stant parietes.
O Pater, O Patria, O Priami domus;
Septum altisono cardine templum:
Vidi ego te, adstante ope barbarica,
Tectis cælatis, laqueatis,
Auro, ebore instructum regifice.
Hæc omnia vidi inflammari,
Priamo vi vitam evitari,
Jovis aram sanguine turpari(167).”

_Andromache Molottus_ is translated from the _Andromache_ of Euripides, and is so called from Molottus, the son of Neoptolemus and Andromache.

_Andromeda_. Livius Andronicus had formerly written a Latin play on the well-known story of Perseus and Andromeda, which was translated from Sophocles. The play of Ennius, however, on the same subject, was a version of a tragedy of Euripides, now chiefly known from the ridicule cast on it in the fifth act of Aristophanes’ _Feasts of Ceres_. That Ennius’ drama was translated from Euripides, is sufficiently manifest, from a comparison of its fragments with the passages of the Greek Andromeda, preserved by Stobæus.

_Athamas_. There is only one short fragment of this play now extant.

_Cresphontes_. Merope, believing that her son Cresphontes had been slain by a person who was brought before her, discovers, when about to avenge on him the death of her child, that she whom she had mistaken for the murderer is Cresphontes himself.

_Dulorestes_. Of this play there is only one line remaining, and of course it is almost impossible to ascertain from what Greek original it was borrowed. Even this single verse has by several critics been supposed to be falsely attributed to Ennius, and to belong, in fact, to the Dulorestes of Pacuvius(168).

_Erectheus_. There is just enough of this play extant to have satisfied Columna, one of the editors of Ennius, that it was taken from a tragedy of the same name by Euripides. As told by Hyginus, the fable concerning Erectheus, King of Attica, was, that he had four daughters, who all pledged themselves not to survive the death of any one of their number. Eumolpus, son of Neptune, being slain at the siege of Athens, his father required that one of the daughters of Erectheus should be sacrificed to him in compensation. This having been accomplished, her sisters slew themselves as a matter of course, and Erectheus was soon afterwards struck by Jupiter with thunder, at the solicitation of Neptune. The longest passage preserved from this tragedy is the speech of Colophonia, when about to be sacrificed to Neptune by her father.

_Eumenides_. This play, translated from Æschylus, exhibited the phrensy of Orestes, and his final absolution from the vengeance of the Furies.

_Hectoris Lytris vel Lustra_, so called from λυω, _solvo_, turned on the redemption from Achilles by Priam, of the body of Hector. It appears, however, from the fragments, that the combat of Hector, and the brutal treatment of his corpse by Achilles, had been represented or related in the early scenes of the piece.

_Hecuba_. This is a free translation from the Greek _Hecuba_, perhaps the most tragic of all the dramas of Euripides. From the work of Ennius, there is still extant a speech by the shade of Polydorus, announcing in great form his arrival from Acheron. This soliloquy, which is a good deal expanded from the original Greek, always produced a great sensation in the Roman theatre, and is styled by Cicero, _Grande Carmen_(169).—

“Adsum, atque advenio Acherunte, vix via alta, atque ardua,
Per speluncas saxeis structas aspereis pendentibus
Maxumeis; ubi rigida constat et crassa caligo inferûm;
Unde animæ excitantur obscura umbra, aperto ostio
Alti Acheruntis, falso sanguine imagines mortuorum(170).”

A speech of Hecuba, on seeing the dead body of Polydorus, and in which she reproaches the Greeks as having no punishment for the murder of a parent or a guest, seems to have been added by Ennius himself, at least it is not in the Greek original of Euripides. On the whole, indeed, the _Hecuba_ of Ennius appears, so far as we can judge from the fragments, to be the least servile of his imitations. In Columna’s edition of Ennius, an opportunity is afforded by corresponding quotations from the Greek _Hecuba_, of comparing the manner in which the Latin poet has varied, amplified, or compressed the thoughts of his original. In Euripides, Hecuba, while persuading Ulysses to intercede for Polixena, says—

“Τὸ δ’ αξίωμα, καν κακως λέγῃς, τὸ σόν
Πείσει. Λόγος γαρ ἔκ τ’ αδοξούντων ἰων,
Και ’κ των δοκούντων αὐτὸς, οὐ ταυτὸν σθένει.”

Ennius imitates this as follows:

“Hæc tu, etsi perverse dices, facile Achivos flexeris;
Namque opulenti cum loquuntur pariter atque ignobiles,
Eadem dicta, eademque oratio æqua non æque valent.”

This has been copied by Plautus, and from him by Moliere in his _Amphitrion_—

“Tous les discours sont des sottises
Partant d’un homme sans eclat;
Ce seroient paroles exquisses,
Si c’etoit un grand qui parlàt.”

The last link in this chain of imitation, is Pope’s well-known lines—

“What woful stuff this madrigal would be,
In some starved hackney sonnetteer or me!
But let a lord once own the happy lines,
How the wit brightens, how the style refines!”

_Iliona sive Polydorus_.—Priam, during the siege of Troy, had entrusted his son Polydorus to the care of Polymnestor, King of Thrace, who was married to Iliona, daughter of Priam, and slew his guest, in order to possess himself of the treasure which had been sent along with him. The only passage of the play which remains, is one in which the shade of Polydorus calls on Hecuba to arise and bury her murdered son.

_Iphigenia_.—Ennius, as already mentioned, appears invariably to have translated from Euripides, in preference to Sophocles, when the same subject had been treated by both these poets. Sophocles had written a tragedy on the topic of the well-known _Iphigenia in Aulis_ of Euripides; but it is the latter piece which has been adopted by the Roman poet.

Boeckius has shown, in a learned dissertation, that Euripides wrote two _Iphigenias in Aulis_(171). From the first, which has perished, Aristophanes parodied the verses introduced in his _Frogs_; and it was on this work that Ennius formed his Latin _Iphigenia_. The _Iphigenia_ now extant, and published in the editions of Euripides, is a _recension_ of the original drama, which was undertaken on account of the ridicule thrown on it by Aristophanes, and was not acted till after the death of its author. Boeckius, indeed, thinks, that it was written by the younger Euripides, the nephew of the more celebrated dramatist; hence some of the lines of Ennius, which, on comparison with the _Iphigenia_ now extant, appear to us original, were probably translated from the first written _Iphigenia_. Such, perhaps, are the jingling verses concerning the disadvantages of idleness, which are supposed, not very naturally, to be sung while weather-bound in Aulis, by the Greek soldiers, who form the chorus of this tragedy instead of the women of Chalcis in the play of Euripides:—

“Otio qui nescit uti, plus negoti habet,
Quam quum est negotium in negotio;
Nam cui quod agat institutum est, in illo negotio
Id agit; studet ibi, mentem atque animum delectat suum.
Otioso in otio animus nescit quid sibi velit.
Hoc idem est; neque domi nunc nos, nec militiæ sumus:
Imus huc, hinc illuc; quum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet.
Incerte errat animus—(172).”

_Medea_.—This play is imitated from the _Medea_ of Euripides. Since the time of Paulus Manutius(173), an idea has prevailed that Ennius was the author of two plays on the subject of Medea—one entitled _Medea_, and the other _Medea Exsul_, both imitated from Greek originals of Euripides. This opinion was formed in consequence of there being several passages of the _Medea_ of Ennius, to which corresponding passages cannot be found in the _Medea_ of Euripides, now extant; and it was confirmed by the grammarians sometimes quoting the play by the title _Medea_, and at others by that of _Medea Exsul_. Planck, however, in his recent edition of the fragments of the Latin tragedy, conjectures that there was only one play, and that this play was entitled by Ennius the _Medea Exsul_, which name was appropriate to the subject; but that when quoted by the critics and old grammarians, it was sometimes cited, as was natural, by its full title, at others simply _Medea_. The lines in the Latin play, to which parallel passages cannot be found in Euripides, he believes to be of Ennius’ own invention. Osannus thinks, that neither the opinion of Manutius, nor of Planck, is quite accurate. He believes that Euripides wrote a _Medea_, which he afterwards revised and altered, in order to obviate the satiric criticisms of Aristophanes. The Greek _Medea_, which we now have, he supposes to be compounded of the original copy and the recension,—the ancient grammarians having interpolated the manuscripts. Ennius, he maintains, employed the original tragedy; and hence in the Latin play, we now find translations of lines which were omitted both in the recension and in the compound tragedy, which is at present extant(174).

The _Medea_ of Ennius was a popular drama at Rome, and was considered one of the best productions of its author. Cicero asks, if there be any one such a foe to the Roman name, as to reject or despise the _Medea_ of Ennius. From the romantic interest of the subject, Medea was the heroine of not less than four epic poems; and no fable, of Greek antiquity, was more frequently dramatized by the Latin poets. Attius, Varro, Ovid, and Seneca, successively imitated the tragedy of Ennius, and improved on their model.

_Phœnix_.—There were two persons of this name in mythological story. One the son of Agenor, and brother of Cadmus, who gave name to Phœnicia; the other the preceptor of Achilles, who accompanied that hero to the Trojan war. The only reason for supposing that the tragedy of Ennius related to this latter person is, that a play founded on some part of his life was written by Euripides, from whom the Roman poet has borrowed so much.

_Telamon_.—This play, of which no Greek original is known, seems to have been devoted to a representation of the misfortunes of Telamon, particularly the concluding period of his life, in which he heard of the death of his eldest son Ajax, and the exile of his second son Teucer. To judge from the fragments which remain, it must have been by far the finest drama of Ennius. He thus happily versifies the celebrated sentiment of Anaxagoras, and puts it into the mouth of Telamon, when he hears of the death of his son—

“Ego quom genui, tum moriturum scivi, et ei rei sustuli;
Præterea ad Trojam quom misi ad defendendam Græciam,
Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere(175).”

Ennius being an inhabitant of _Magna Græcia_, probably held the Tuscan soothsayers and diviners in great contempt. There is a long passage cited by the grammarians as from this tragedy, (but which, I think, must rather have belonged to his satires,) directed against that learned body, and calculated to give them considerable offence—

“Non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem,
Non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos,
Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somniûm:
Non enim sunt ii, aut scientiâ, aut arte divinei;
Sed superstitiosi vates, impudentesque hariolei,
Aut inertes, aut insanei, aut quibus egestas imperat:
Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam;
Quibus divitias pollicentur ab iis drachmam ipsei petunt:
De his divitiis sibi deducant drachmam; reddant cætera(176).”

There is a good deal of wit and archness in the two concluding lines, and the whole breathes a spirit of free-thinking, such as one might expect from the translator of Euhemerus. In another passage, indeed, but which, I presume, was attributed to an impious character, or one writhing under the stroke of recent calamity, it is roundly declared that the gods take no concern in human affairs, for if they did, the good would prosper, and the wicked suffer, whereas it is quite the contrary:

“Ego Deûm genus esse semper dixi, et dicam cœlitum;
Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus;
Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis; quod nunc abest(177).”

_Telephus_ is probably taken from a lost play of Euripides, ridiculed by Aristophanes in his _Acharnenses_, from a scene of which it would seem that Telephus had appeared on the stage in tattered garments. The passages of the Latin play which remain, exhibit Telephus as an exile from his kingdom, wandering about in ragged habiliments. The lines of Horace, in his Art of Poetry, (a work which is devoted to the subject of the Roman drama,) are probably in allusion to this tragedy:

“Telephus et Peleus, cum pauper et exsul, uterque
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.”

_Thyestes_.—The loose and familiar numbers in which the tragedy of Telephus was written, were by no means suitable to the atrocious subject of the Supper of Thyestes. Ennius accordingly has been censured by Cicero, in a passage of his _Orator_, for employing them in this drama.—“Similia sunt quædam apud nostros; velut illa in Thyeste,

‘Quemnam te esse dicam! qui tarda in senectute,’

Et quæ sequuntur: quæ, nisi cum tibicen accesserit, orationi sunt solutæ simillima.” There can therefore be little doubt that the passage in Horace’s Art of Poetry, in which a tragedy on the subject of Thyestes is blamed as flat and prosaic, and hardly rising above the level of ordinary conversation in comedy, alluded to the work of Ennius—

“Indignatur item privatis, ac prope socco
Dignis carminibus, narrari cœna Thyestæ.”

Yet this spiritless tragedy, was very popular in Rome, and continued to be frequently represented, till Varius treated the same subject in a manner, as we are informed by Quintilian, equal to the Greeks(178).

It thus appears that Ennius has little claim to originality or invention as a tragic author. Perhaps it may seem remarkable, that a poet of his powerful genius did not rather write new plays, than copy servilely from the Greeks. But nothing is ever invented where borrowing will as well serve the purpose. Rome had few artists, in consequence of the facility with which the finest specimens of the arts were procured by plundering the towns of Sicily and Greece. Now, at the period in which Ennius flourished, the productions of Grecian literature were almost as new to the Romans as the most perfectly original compositions. Thus, the dramatic works of Ennius were possessed of equal novelty for his audience as if wholly his own; while a great deal of trouble was saved to himself. The example, however, was unfortunate, as it communicated to Roman literature a character of servility, and of imitation, or rather of translation, from the Greek, which so completely pervaded it, that succeeding poets were most faultless when they copied most closely, and at length, when they abandoned the guides whom they had so long followed, they fell into declamation and bombast. Probably, had the compositions of Ennius been original, they would have been less perfect, than by being thus imitated, or nearly translated, from the masterpieces of Greece. But the literature of his country might ultimately have attained a higher eminence. The imitative productions of Ennius may be likened to those trees which are transplanted when far advanced in growth. Much at first appears to have been gained; but it is certain, that he who sets the seedling is more useful than the transplanter, and that, while the trees removed from their native soil lose their original beauty and luxuriance without increase in magnitude, the seedling swells in its parent earth to immensity of size—fresh, blooming, and verdant in youth, vigorous in maturity, and venerable in old age.

Nor, although Ennius was the first writer who introduced satiric composition into Rome, are his pretensions, in this respect, to originality, very distinguished. He adapted the ancient satires of the Tuscan and Oscan stage to the closet, by refining their grossness, softening their asperity, and introducing railleries borrowed from the Greek poets, with whom he was familiar. His satires thus appear to have been a species of _centos_ made up from passages of various poems, which, by slight alterations, were humorously or satirically applied, and chiefly to the delineation of character: “Carmen,” says Diomedes the grammarian, “quod ex variis poematibus constabat satira vocabatur, quale scripserunt Pacuvius et Ennius.” The fragments which remain of these satires are too short and broken to allow us even to divine their subject. That entitled _Asotus_ vel _Sotadicus_, is the representation of a luxurious, dissolute man, and was so termed from Sotades, a voluptuous Cretan poet. Quintilian also mentions, that one of his satires contained a Dialogue between Life and Death, contending with each other, a mode of composition suggested perhaps by the celebrated allegory of Prodicus. We are farther informed by Aulus Gellius, that he introduced into another satire, with great skill and beauty, Æsop’s fable of the Larks(179), now well known through the imitation of Fontaine(180). The lark having built her nest among some early corn, feared that it might be reaped before her young ones were fit to take wing. She therefore desired them to report to her whatever conversation they might hear in the fields during her absence. They first informed her, that the husbandman had come to the spot, and desired his son to summon their neighbours and friends to assist in cutting the crop the next morning. The lark, on hearing this, declares, that there is no occasion to be in any haste in removing. On the following day, it is again reported, that the husbandman had desired that his relations should be requested to assist him; and the lark is still of opinion that there is no necessity to hurry away. At length, however, the young larks relate, that the husbandman had announced that he would execute the work himself. On hearing this, the old lark said it was now time to be gone. She accordingly removed her younglings, and the corn was immediately cut down by the master. From this tale Ennius deduces as the moral,

“Hoc erit tibi argumentum semper in promptu situm;
Ne quid expectes amicos, quod tute agere possis.”

It is certainly much to be regretted that we possess so scanty fragments of these satires, which would have been curious as the first attempts at a species of composition which was carried to such perfection by succeeding Latin poets, and which has been regarded as almost peculiar to the Romans.

The great work, however, of Ennius, and of which we have still considerable remains, was his Annals, or metrical chronicles, devoted to the celebration of Roman exploits, from the earliest periods to the conclusion of the Istrian war. These Annals were written by our poet in his old age; at least, Aulus Gellius informs us, on the authority of Varro, that the twelfth book was finished by him in his sixty-seventh year(181).

It may perhaps appear strange, that, when the fabulous exploits, the superstitions, the characters and the manners, of the heroic ages, were so admirably adapted for poetical imagery, and had been so successfully employed in Greece, the chief work of the Father of Roman Song should have been a sort of versified newspaper, like the _Henriade_ of Voltaire, or the _Araucana_ of Alonco de Ercilla: For in other countries poetry has been earliest devoted to the decoration of those marvels in which the _amantes mira Camœnæ_ chiefly rejoice. In most lands, however, the origin of poetry was coeval with the rise of the nation, and every thing seems wondrous to an ignorant and timid race. The Greeks, in their first poetical age, peopled every grove and lake with fauns and naiads, or personified the primeval powers of nature. They sung the fables concerning their gods, and the exploits of heroes, in those ancient verses which have been combined in the Theogony attributed to Hesiod, and those immortal rhapsodies which have formed the basis of the Homeric poems. The marvellous vision of Dante was the earliest effort of the Italian muse; and some of the first specimens of verse in France and England were wild adventures in love or arms, interspersed with stories of demons and enchanters. But in Rome, though the first effort of the language was in poetry, five hundred years had elapsed from the foundation of the city before this effort was made. At that period, the Romans were a rude but rational race. The locks of Curius were perhaps uncombed; but though the Republic had as yet produced no character of literary elegance, she had given birth to Cincinnatus, and Fabricius, and Camillus. Her citizens had neither been rendered timid nor indolent by their superstitions, but were actively employed in agriculture or in arms. They were a less contemplative and imaginative race than the Greeks. Their spirit was indeed sufficiently warlike; but that peculiar spirit of adventure, (which characterised the early ages of Greece, and the middle ages of modern Europe,) had, if it ever existed, long ago ceased in Rome. By this time, the Roman armies were too well disciplined, and the system of warfare too regular, to admit a description of the picturesque combats of the Greek and Trojan charioteers. Poetry was thus too late in its birth to take a natural flight. In such circumstances, the bard, however rich or lofty might be his conceptions, would not listen to his own taste or inspiration, but select the theme which was likely to prove most popular; and the Romans, being a national and ambitious people, would be more gratified by the jejune relation of their own exploits, than by the _speciosa miracula_ of the most sublime or romantic invention.

The Annals of Ennius were partly founded on those ancient traditions and old heroic ballads, which Cicero, on the authority of Cato’s _Origines_, mentions as having been sung at feasts by the guests, many centuries before the age of Cato, in praise of the heroes of Rome(182). Niebuhr has attempted to show, that all the memorable events of Roman history had been versified in ballads, or metrical chronicles, in the Saturnian measure, before the time of Ennius; who, according to him, merely expressed in the Greek hexameter, what his predecessors had delivered in a ruder strain, and then maliciously depreciated these ancient compositions, in order that he himself might be considered as the founder of Roman poetry(183). The devotion of the Decii, and death of the Fabian family,—the stories of Scævola, Cocles, and Coriolanus,—Niebuhr believes to have been the subjects of romantic ballads. Even Fabius Pictor, according to this author, followed one of these old legends in his narrative concerning Mars and the Wolf, and his whole history of Romulus. Livy, too, in his account of the death of Lucretia, has actually transcribed from one of these productions; since what Sextus says, on entering the chamber of Lucretia, is nearly in the Saturnian measure:—

“Tace, Lucretia, inquit, Sextus Tarquinius sum,
Ferrum in manu est, moriere si emiseris vocem(184).”

But the chief work, according to Niebuhr, from which Ennius borrowed, was a romantic epopee, or chronicle, made up from these heroic ballads about the end of the fourth century of Rome, commencing with the accession of Tarquinius Priscus, and ending with the battle of Regillus. The arrival, says Niebuhr, of that monarch under the name of Lucumo—his exploits and victories—his death—then the history of Servius Tullius—the outrageous pride of Tullia—the murder of the lawful monarch—the fall of the last Tarquin, preceded by a supernatural warning—Lucretia—Brutus and the truly Homeric battle of Regillus—compose an epic, which, in poetical incident, and splendour of fancy, surpasses everything produced in the latter ages of Rome(185). The battle of Regillus, in particular, as described by the annalists, bears evident marks of its poetical origin. It was not a battle between two hosts, but a struggle of heroes. As in the fights painted in the Iliad, the champions meet in single combat, and turn by individual exertions the tide of victory. The dictator Posthumius wounds King Tarquin, whom he had encountered at the first onset. The Roman knight Albutius engages with the Latin chief Mamilius, but is wounded by him, and forced to quit the field. Mamilius then nearly breaks the Roman line, but is slain by the Consul Herminius, which decides the fate of the day. After the battle of Regillus, all the events are not so completely poetical; but in the siege of Veii we have a representation of the ten years war of Troy. The secret introduction of the troops by Camillus into the middle of the city resembles the story of the wooden horse, and the Etruscan statue of Juno corresponds to the Trojan Palladium(186).

Any period of history may be thus exhibited in the form of an epic cycle; and, though there can be little doubt of the existence of ancient Saturnian ballads at Rome, I do not think that Niebuhr has adduced sufficient proof or authority for his magnificent epopee, commencing with the accession of Tarquin, and ending with the battle of Regillus. With regard to the accusation against Ennius, of depreciating the ancient materials which he had employed, it is founded on the contempt which he expresses for the verses of the Fauns and the Prophets. His obligations, if he owed any, he has certainly nowhere acknowledged, at least in the fragments which remain; and he rather betrays an anxiety, at the commencement of his poem, to carry away the attention of the reader from the Saturnian muses, and direct it to the Grecian poets,—to Pindus, and the nymphs of Helicon.

He begins his Annals with an invocation to the nine Muses, and the account of a vision in which Homer had appeared to him, and related the story of the metamorphosis already mentioned:—

“Visus Homerus adesse poeta:
Hei mihi qualis erat, quantum mutatus ab illo!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Septingenti sunt, paulo plus vel minus, anni
Quom memini fieri me pavom.”