Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

The most important work of Ennius is his great epic in eighteen books, the Annales , in which he told the legendary and actual history of the Romans from the arrival of Æneas in Italy to his own time. In this work, as in his tragedies, he may be said to have followed in the way pointed out by Nævius, but the Annales mark an immense advance beyond the Bellum Punicum of Nævius. The monotonous and unpolished Saturnian metre could not, even in the most skillful hands, attain the dignity or the melodious cadences appropriate to great epic poems. Ennius therefore gave up the native Italian metre and wrote his epic in hexameter verse in imitation of Homer. This was no easy matter, for the laws of the verse as it existed in Greek could not be applied without change to Latin, but Ennius modified them in some particulars and thus fixed the form of the Latin hexameter, at the same time establishing in great part the rules of Latin prosody. Only about six hundred lines of the Annales remain, and many of these are detached from their context, yet from these we can see that Ennius had much poetic imagination, great skill in the use of words, and great dignity of diction. The line At tuba terribili sonitu taratantara dixit shows at once his ability to make the sound of his words imitate the sound he wishes to describe (in this case that of a trumpet) and his liking for alliteration. This last quality is found in many Roman poets, but in none more frequently than Ennius.

The Annales continued to be read and admired even after the time of Virgil, though the Æneid soon took rank as the greatest Roman epic. Some of the lines of Ennius breathe the true Roman spirit of military pride and civic rectitude, as

Moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque , 2

or

Quem nemo ferro potuit superare nec auro , 3

or

Nec cauponantes bellum sed belligerentes . 4

Among the existing fragments are several which seem to have suggested to Virgil some of the passages in the Æneid , and there is no doubt that Virgil found Ennius worthy of imitation.

We may learn something of the character of Ennius from a passage of the Annales in which he is said, 5on the authority of the grammarian L. Ælius Stilo, to be describing himself: “A man of such a nature that no thought ever prompts him to do a bad deed either carelessly or maliciously; a learned, faithful, pleasant man, eloquent, contented and happy, witty, speaking fit words in season, courteous, and of few words, possessing much ancient buried lore; a man whom old age made wise in customs old and new and in the laws of many ancients, both gods and men; one who knew when to speak and when to be silent.”

Ennius was the first great epic poet at Rome. After him epic poetry was neglected, until it was taken up again a hundred years later. Tragedy, however the other branch of literature in which Ennius chiefly excelled, was cultivated without interruption, for it had become usual to produce tragedies at the chief festivals of the city and on other public occasions, and new plays were therefore constantly in demand.

1Even if this work and some treatises on grammar should be ascribed to a later Ennius, which is not proved, the works of the great poet were sufficiently various.

2Ancient customs and men cause the Roman republic to prosper.

3Whom no one with the sword could overcome nor by bribing.

4This line occurs in a context which is worth translating. “I do not ask gold for myself, and do not you offer me a ransom: not waging the war like hucksters, but like soldiers, with the sword, not with gold, let us strive for our lives. Let us try by our valor whether our mistress Fortune wishes you or me to rule.”

5Aulus Gellius, xii, 4.

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FRAGMENTS.

I. TELAMON THE DEATH OF AJAX.

II. ANSWER OF PYRRHUS TO THE ROMAN AMBASSADORS, WHO CAME TO RANSOM THE PRISONERS TAKEN FROM THEM BY THAT PRINCE IN BATTLE.

III. FABIUS.

IV. A ROMAN TRIBUNE WITHSTANDING THE ATTACK OF A WHOLE HOST.

V. SOOTHSAYERS.

VI. ARE THERE GODS?

VII. THE IDLE SOLDIER.

VIII. THE CALM OF EVENING.

IX. ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

X. ON THE REVIVAL OF ILIUM IN ROME.

XI. ON THE CHARACTER OF AN ADVISER AND FRIEND.

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I KNEW, when I begat him, he must die,

And train’ed him to no other destiny, —

Knew, when I sent him to the Trojan shore,

’Twas not to halls of feats, but fields of gore.

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YOUR gold I ask not; take your ransoms home;

Warriors, not trafficers in war, we come;

Not gold, but steel, our strife should arbitrate,

And valour prove which is the choice of fate.

The brave, whose lives the battle spar’d, with me

Shall never mourn the loss of liberty.

Unransom’d then your comrades hence remove,

And may the mighty gods the boon approve!. *

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HEEDLESS of what a censuring world might say,

One man restor’d the state by wise delay;

Hence time has hallow’d his immortal name,

And, with increasing years, increas’d his fame.

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FORTH on the tribune, like a shower,

the gathering javelins spring,

His buckler pierce — or on its boss

the quivering lances ring —

Or rattle on his brazen helm;

but vain the utmost might

Of foes, that press on every side, —

none can the tribune smite.

And many a spear he shivers then,

and many a stroke bestows,

While with many a jet of reeking sweat

his labouring body flows.

No breathing time the tribune has —

no pause — the winded iron,

The Istrian darts, in ceaseless showers,

provoke him and environ:

And lance and sling destruction bring

on many heroes stout,

Who tumble headlong from the wall,

within it, or without.

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FOR no Marsian augur, (whom fools view with awe,)

Nor diviner, nor star-gazer, care I a straw;

The Egyptian quack, an expounder of dreams,

Is neither in science nor art what he seems;

Superstitious and shameless, they prowl through our streets,

Some hungry, some crazy, but all of them cheats.

Impostors! who vaunt that to others they’ll show

A path, which themselves neither travel nor know.

Since they promise us wealth if we pay for their pains,

Let them take from that wealth, and bestow what remains

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YES! there are gods; but they no thought bestow

On human deeds, — on mortal bliss or woe, —

Else would such ills our wretched race assail?

Would the Good suffer? — would the Bad prevail?

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WHO know not leisure to employ,

Toil more than those whom toils employ;

For they, who toil with purpos’d mind,

In all their labours pleasure find;

But they, whose time no labours fill,

Have in their minds nor wish nor will.

— So ’tis with us, call’d far form home,

Nor yet to fields of battle come,

We hither march, we thither sail,

Our minds as veering as the gale.