Chapter IV: Ennius (3)

[Footnote 42: 'Wisdom is banished from amongst us, violence
rules the day: the good orator is despised, the rough soldier
loved; striving, not with words of learning, but with words of
hate, they get embroiled in feuds, and stir up enmity one with
another. They challenge not their adversaries to contend by
forms of law, but claim their rights by the sword, and aim at
sovereign power, and make their way by sheer force.']

[Footnote 43: Cic. De Off. i. 12.]

[Footnote 44: 'Neither do I ask gold for myself, nor offer ye
to me a ransom. Let us wage the war, not like hucksters, but
like soldiers--with the sword, not with gold, putting our
lives to the issue. Whether our mistress Fortune wills that
you or I should reign, or what her purpose be, let us prove by
valour. And hearken too to this saying,--The brave men, whom
the fortune of battle spares, their liberty I have resolved to
spare. Take my offer, as I grant it, under favour of the great
gods.']

[Footnote 45: 'Whither have your minds, which heretofore were
wont to stand firm, madly swerved from the straight course?']

[Footnote 46: A comparison with the original passage (Iliad
vi. 506) will show that Ennius, while reproducing much, though
not all, of the force and life of Homer's image, has added
also some touches of his own:--

[Greek:
hos d' hote tis statos hippos, akostesas epi phatne,
desmon aporrhexas theie pedioio kroainon,
eiothos louesthai eurrheios potamoio,
kydioon; hypsou de kare echei, amphi de chaitai
omois aissontai; ho d' aglaiephi pepoithos,
rhimpha he gouna pherei meta t' ethea kai nomon hippon.]

Cf. Virgil, Aen. xi. 492:--

Qualis ubi abruptis fugit praesepia vinclis
Tandem liber equus, campoque potitus aperto
Aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,
Aut adsuetus aquae perfundi flumine noto
Emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte
Luxurians, luduntque jubae per colla, per armos.]

[Footnote 47: 'They watch, as when the consul is going to give
the signal, all look eagerly to the barrier, to see how soon
he may start the chariots from the painted entrance.']

[Footnote 48:

Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum
Voltu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat.--Aen. i. 254.]

[Footnote 49: [Greek: Ennios Rhomaios poietes; hon Ailianos
epainein axion phesi.... delon de hos etethepei tou poietou
ten megalonoian kai ton metron to megaleion kai axiagaston.]
Suidas, vol i. p. 1258, ed. Gaisford.]

[Footnote 50: Cf. Iliad xxiii. 114-120; and also Virgil, Aen.
vi. 179:--

Itur in antiquam silvam, stabula alta ferarum,
Procumbunt piceae, sonat icta securibus ilex,
Fraxineaeque trabes cuneis et fissile robur
Scinditur, advolvunt ingentis montibus ornos.]

[Footnote 51: 'One man, by biding his time, restored the
commonwealth. He cared not for what men said of him, as
compared with our safety: therefore now his fame waxeth
brighter day by day.']

[Footnote 52: 'He watched the courage of his army, to see if
any murmur should arise for some pause to the long battle,
some rest from their weary toil.']

[Footnote 53: 'As sang our Ennius, the first who brought down
from beautiful Helicon a chaplet of unfading leaf, the fame
of which should be bruited loud through the nations of Italian
men.']

[Footnote 54: 'When the old dame had risen, and with trembling
limbs had brought the light, thus she (Ilia), roused in
terror from her sleep, with tears tells her tale: "Daughter of
Eurydice, whom our father loved, my strength and life now fail
me through all my frame. For methought that a goodly man was
bearing me off through the pleasant willow-groves, by the
river-banks, and places strange to me. Thereafter, O my
sister, I seemed to be wandering all alone, and with slow
steps to track my way, to be seeking thee, and to be unable
to find thee near; no footpath steadied my step. Afterwards
methought I heard my father address me in these
words--'Daughter, trouble must first be borne by thee;
afterwards thy fortune shall rise up again from the river.'
With these words, O sister, he suddenly departed, nor gave
himself to my sight, though my heart yearned to him, though I
kept eagerly stretching my hands to the blue vault of heaven,
weeping, and calling on him with loving tones. With pain and
weary heart at last sleep left me."']

[Footnote 55: Aen. ii. 270.]

[Footnote 56: 'Regret and sorrow fill their hearts, while
thus they say to one another, O Romulus, God-like Romulus, how
great a guardian of our country did the gods create in thee! O
father, author of our being, O blood sprung from the gods!
it is thou that hast brought us forth within the realms of
light.']

[Footnote 57: E.g. passages such as the following:--

Quique altum Praeneste viri, quique arva Gabinae
Junonis gelidumque Anienem et roscida rivis
Hernica saxa colunt, quos dives Anagnia pascit,
Quos, Amasene pater.--Aen. vii. 682-5.]

[Footnote 58: 'O father! O fatherland! O house of Priam,
palace, closing on high-sounding hinge, I have seen thee,
guarded by a barbaric host, with carved and deep-fretted roof,
with ivory and gold royally adorned.']

[Footnote 59: 'But they rise superior in spirit, and spurn the
first sharp wounds of war.']

[Footnote 60: 'When I begat them, I knew that they must die,
and to that end I bred them. Besides, when I sent them to Troy
to fight for Greece, I was well aware that I was sending them,
not to a feast, but to a deadly war.']

[Footnote 61: 'Such is my nature. Enmity and friendship
equally I bear stamped on my forehead.']

[Footnote 62: 'Ennio delector, ait quispiam, quod non discedit
a communi ordine verborum.'--Orator, 11.]

[Footnote 63: Cicero, Brutus, 15; Aulus Gellius, xii. 2.]

[Footnote 64: 'He was called by those, his fellow-countrymen,
who flourished then and enjoyed their day, the chosen flower
of the people, and the marrow of persuasion.']

[Footnote 65: Compare his account of the Tribune in the
Istrian war:--

'Undique conveniunt velut imber, tela tribuno,' etc.]

[Footnote 66: Cf. 'Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem,'
etc.]

[Footnote 67: Cf.

'Ita sapere opino esse optimum, ut pro viribus
Tacere ac fabulare tute noveris;'

also

'Ea libertas est quae pectus purum et firmum gestitat.']

[Footnote 68: 'Egregie cordatus homo catus Aeliu' Sextus.']

[Footnote 69: 'In idleness the mind knows not what it wants.
This is now our case. We are neither now at home nor
abroad. We go hither, back again to the place from which we
came,--when we have reached it we desire to leave it again.
Our mind is all astray--existence goes on outside of real
life.']

[Footnote 70: iii. 1059-67.]

[Footnote 71: 'But your superstitious prophets and impudent
fortune-tellers, idle fellows, or madmen, or the victims of
want, who cannot discern the path for themselves, yet point
the way out to others, and ask a drachma from the very persons
to whom they promise a fortune.']

[Footnote 72: 'And there it is announced to Julianus that
a certain public reader, an accomplished man, with a very
well-trained and musical voice, read the Annals of Ennius
publicly in the theatre. Let us go, says he, to hear this
"Ennianista," whoever he is,--for by that name he chose to be
called.'--Aulus Gellius, xviii. 5.

The following line of Martial (v. 10. 7) implies also his
popularity under the Empire--

'Ennius est lectus, salvo tibi, Roma, Marone.']

[Footnote 73: 'Let us venerate Ennius like the groves, sacred
from their antiquity, in which the great and ancient
oak-trees are invested not so much with beauty as with sacred
associations.'--Inst. Or. x. i. 88.]

[Footnote 74: 'Ennius, the wise and strong, and the second
Homer, as his critics will have it, seems to care little for
the issue of all his promises and Pythagorean dreams.'--Epist.
II. i. 50-2.]