Ennius
Ennius | |
---|---|
Born | Quintus Ennius c. 239 BC Rudiae, Roman Republic |
Died | c. 169 BC |
Occupation | Poet |
Nationality | Roman |
Genre | Epic poetry |
Quintus Ennius (Latin pronunciation:
Biography
Very little is reliably known about the life of Ennius. His contemporaries hardly mentioned him and much that is related about him could have been embroidered from references to himself in his now fragmentary writings.
The public career of Ennius first really emerges in middle life, when he was serving in the army with the rank of centurion during the Second Punic War. While in Sardinia in the year 204 BC, he is said to have attracted the attention of Cato the Elder and was taken by him to Rome. There he taught Greek and adapted Greek plays for a livelihood, and by his poetical compositions gained the friendship of some of the greatest men in Rome whose achievements he praised. Amongst these were Scipio Africanus and Fulvius Nobilior, whom he accompanied on his Aetolian campaign (189). Afterwards he made the capture of Ambracia, at which he was present, the subject of a play and of an episode in the Annales. It was through the influence of Nobilior's son Quintus that Ennius subsequently obtained Roman citizenship. But he himself lived plainly and simply in the literary quarter on the Aventine Hill with the poet Caecilius Statius, a fellow adapter of Greek plays.
At about the age of 70 Ennius died, immediately after producing his tragedy Thyestes. In the last book of his epic poem, in which he seems to have given various details of his personal history, he mentioned that he was in his 67th year at the date of its composition. He compared himself, in contemplation of the close of the great work of his life, to a gallant horse which, after having often won the prize at the Olympic Games, obtained his rest when weary with age. A similar feeling of pride at the completion of a great career is expressed in the memorial lines which he composed to be placed under his bust after death: "Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men."[7]
Literature
Ennius continued the nascent literary tradition by writing plays in Greek and Roman style (praetextae and palliatae), as well as his most famous work, a historical epic in hexameters called the Annales. Other minor works include the Epicharmus, Epigrammata, the Euhemerus, the Hedyphagetica, Praecepta/Protrepticus, Saturae (or Satires), Scipio, and Sota.[8]
The Annales
The Annales was an epic poem in fifteen books, later expanded to eighteen, covering Roman history from the fall of Troy in 1184 BC down to the censorship of Cato the Elder in 184 BC. It was the first Latin poem to adopt the dactylic hexameter metre used in Greek epic and didactic poetry,[9] leading it to become the standard metre for these genres in Latin poetry. The Annals became a school text for Roman schoolchildren, eventually supplanted by Virgil's Aeneid. About 600 lines survive.
Minor works
The Epicharmus was inspired by the philosophical hypotheses developed by the Sicilian poet and philosopher Epicharmus of Kos, after which Ennius's work took its name.[10][11] In the Epicharmus, the poet describes a dream he had in which he died and was transported to some place of heavenly enlightenment. Here, he met Epicharmus, who explained the nature of the gods and taught Ennius the physics of the universe.[12]
The Euhemerus presented a
The Hedyphagetica took much of its substance from the gastronomical epic of Archestratus of Gela. The extant portions of Ennius's poem discuss where a reader might find the best type of fish. Most of the fragments, replete with unique terms for fish and numerous place names, are corrupt or damaged. The Hedyphagetica is written in hexameters, but differs from the Annales in regards to "metrical practices"; this difference is largely due to each works' distinct subject matter.[14]
The titles Praecepta and Protrepticus were likely used to refer to the same (possibly exhortatory) work. However, given this work's almost non-existent nature (only the word pannibus—an "unusual" form of the word pannis, meaning "rags"—is preserved in the work of the
The Saturae is a collection of about thirty lines from satirical poems—making it the first extant instance of Roman satire.[8] These lines are written in a variety of poetic metres.[8][16] The poems in this collection "were mostly concerned with practical wisdom, often driving home a lesson with the help of a fable."[10]
Ennius's Scipio was a work (possibly a panegyric poem) that apparently celebrated the life and deeds of Scipio Africanus. Hardly anything remains of this work, and what is preserved is embedded in the works of others. Unfortunately, "no quotation of [Scipio] supplies a context".[17] Some have proposed that the work was written before the Annales, and others have said that the work was written after Scipio's 201 BC triumph that followed the Battle of Zama (202 BC).[17]
The Sota was a poem, potentially of some length, named after the Greek poet Sotades. The work, which followed a metre established by Sotades known as the "Sotadeus", concerned itself with a number of disparate topics and ideas.[18]
Editions
- Quinto Ennio. Le opere minori, Vol. I. Praecepta, Protrepticus, Saturae, Scipio, Sota. Ed., tr., comm. Alessandro Russo. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2007 (Testi e studi di cultura classica, 40).
- Warmington, E. H. (1935). Ennius (Q. Ennius). Remains of Old Latin. Edited by Eric Herbert Warmington. Vol. 2: Ennius and Caecilius. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
See also
- Latin literature
- List of ancient Romans
- Prosody (Latin)
Footnotes
- ^ Smith (1852), p. 359. "Rudiae is celebrated as the birthplace of Ennius."
- ISBN 0-87779-042-6.
Ennius was at home in three languages: Oscan, his native tongue; Greek, in which he was educated; and Latin, the language of the army with which he served in the Second Punic War.
- ^ E. Badian, "Ennius and his Friends" in Ennius, Fondation Hardt, Geneva 1972, pp.149–99
- ^ Aicher (1989), pp. 227–32.
- ^ Commentary on the Aeneid, vii. 691
- ^ Noctes Atticae 17.17.1
- ^ Most of this section is drawn from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ^ a b c d La Barbera (2014).
- ^ "FJCL Latin Literature Study Guide" (PDF). Florida Junior Classical League. Retrieved 2 March 2014.
- ^ a b Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (2016).
- ^ Ennius, Goldberg, & Manuwald (2018), pp. 220–21.
- ^ Merry (1891), p. 65.
- ^ Ennius, Goldberg, & Manuwald (2018), pp. 238–40.
- ^ Ennius, Goldberg, & Manuwald (2018), pp. 260–61.
- ^ Ennius, Goldberg, & Manuwald (2018), pp. 268–69.
- ^ Ennius, Goldberg, & Manuwald (2018), pp. 270–71.
- ^ a b Ennius, Goldberg, & Manuwald (2018), pp. 286–87.
- ^ Ennius, Goldberg, & Manuwald (2018), pp. 296–97.
Bibliography
- Aicher, Peter (Summer 1989). "Ennius' Dream of Homer". The American Journal of Philology. 110 (2): 227–232. JSTOR 295173.
- Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (10 February 2016). "Ennius". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
- Ennius (2018). Goldberg, Sander M.; Manuwald, Gesine (eds.). Fragmentary Republican Latin. Vol. II: Ennius, Dramatic Fragments. Minor Works. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- La Barbera, Sandro (26 August 2014). "Ennius". Oxford Bibliographies. ISBN 9780195389661. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
- Merry, William Walter, ed. (1891). Selected Fragments of Roman Poetry: From the Earliest Times of the Republic to the Augustan Age. Clarendon Press.
- Smith, William (1852). "Rudiae". A Smaller Classical Dictionary. London, England: John Murray. Retrieved 1 August 2018.
Further reading
- Bettini, M. (1979). Studi e note su Ennio. Pisa: Giardini.
- Brooks, R. A. (1981). Ennius and Roman Tragedy. New York: Arno Press. ISBN 0-405-14030-4.
- Elliott, J. (2009). "Ennius' 'Cunctator' and the History of a Gerund in the Roman Historiographical Tradition". The Classical Quarterly. 59 (2): 532–42. S2CID 162319781.
- Elliott, J. (2010). "Ennius as Universal Historian: The Case of the Annales." Historiae Mundi: Studies in Universal History. Ed. Peter Liddel and Andrew Fear. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 148–161.
- Evans, R.L.S. (1999). "Ennius". In Briggs, Ward (ed.). Ancient Roman Writers. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 211.
- Fisher, J. (2014). The 'Annals' of Quintus Ennius and the Italic Tradition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Fitzgerald, W., and Emily Gowers, eds. (2007). Ennius Perennis. The Annals and Beyond. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philolological Society, Supplementary Volume 31. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Goldberg, S. M. (1995). Epic in Republican Rome. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509372-0.
- Goldberg, Sander M. (1989). "Poetry, Politics, and Ennius". Transactions of the American Philological Association. 119: 247–261. JSTOR 284274.
- Goldschmidt, N. (2012). "Absent Presence: Pater Ennius in Renaissance Europe". Classical Receptions Journal. 4: 1–19. .
- Goldschmidt, Nora (2013). Shaggy Crowns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199681297.
- Jocelyn, H. D. Ennius (Q. Ennius). (1967). The Tragedies of Ennius: The Fragments. Edited by Henry David Jocelyn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- ISBN 9783110836417.
- Morgan, Llewelyn (2014). "A Metrical Scandal in Ennius". The Classical Quarterly. 64: 152–159. S2CID 170339848.
- Sciarrino, Enrica (2006). "The Introduction of Epic in Rome: Cultural Thefts and Social Contests". Arethusa. 39 (3): 449–469. S2CID 143731031.
- Skutsch, O. (1968). Studia Enniana. London: Athlone.
- Ennius, Quintus (1985). Skutsch, Otto (ed.). The Annals of Quintus Ennius. p. 70. ISBN 9780198144489.
External links
- Quotations related to Ennius at Wikiquote
- Latin Wikisource has original text related to this article: Ennius
- Media related to Quintus Ennius at Wikimedia Commons
- Fragments of Ennius' Annals at The Latin Library; text from Wordsworth (1874), line numbering from Warmington (1935)
- Ennius' Annales: text and translation of all fragments at attalus.org; adapted from Warmington (1935)
- Ennius: translation of selected fragments at elfinspell.com; from Specimens of the Poets and Poetry of Greece and Rome by Various Translators (1847)
- Remains of old latin. Vol. 1: Aennius and Caecilius, E. H. Warmington (a cura di), Cambridge-London, 1935, pagg. 1–465.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ennius, Quintus". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 648–49. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the