The other parallel passage is in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered—

To these parallel passages may be added a very similar, though perhaps not a borrowed description, from the earliest production of the most original of all poets, in which the horse of Adonis breaks loose during the dalliance of Venus with his master:—

The poem of Ennius, entitled Phagetica, is curious,—as one would hardly suppose, that in this early age, luxury had made such progress, that the culinary art should have been systematically or poetically treated. All that we know, however, of the manner in which it was prepared or served up, is from the Apologia of Apuleius. It was, which its name imports, a didactic poem on eatables, particularly fish, as Apuleius testifies.—“Q. Ennii edes phagetica, quæ versibus scripsit, innumerabilia piscium genera enumerat, quæ scilicet curiose cognorat.” It is well known, that previous to the time of Ennius, this subject had been discussed both in prose and verse by various Greek authors208, and was particularly detailed in the poem of Archestratus the Epicurean—

It appears from the following passage of Apuleius, that the work of Ennius was a digest of all the previous books on this subject,—“Alios etiam multis versibus decoravit, et ubi gentium quisque eorum inveniatur, ostendit qualiter assus, aut jussulentus optime sapiat; nec tamen ab eruditis reprehendi[pg 90]tur.” The eleven lines which remain, and which have been preserved by Apuleius, mention the places where different sorts of fish are found in greatest perfection and abundance—

Another poem of Ennius, entitled Epicharmus, was so called because it was translated from the Greek work of Epicharmus, the Pythagorean, on the Nature of Things, in the same manner as Plato gave the name of Timæus to the book which he translated from Timæus the Locrian. This was the same Epicharmus who invented Greek comedy, and resided in the court of Hiero of Syracuse. The fragments of this work of Ennius are so broken and corrupted, that it is impossible to follow the plan of his poem, or to discover the system of philosophy which it inculcated. It appears, however, to have contained many speculations concerning the elements of which the world was primarily composed, and which, according to him, were water, earth, air, and fire209; as also with regard to the preservative powers of nature. Jupiter seems merely to have been considered by him as the air, the clouds, and the storm:

This system, which had been previously adopted by the Etruscans, and had been promulgated in some of the Orphic hymns, nearly corresponds with that announced by Cato, in Lucan’s Pharsalia—

and is not far different from the Spinozism, in Pope’s Essay on Man—

Ennius, however, whose compositions thus appear to have been formed entirely on Greek originals, has not more availed himself of these writings than Virgil has profited by the works of Ennius. The prince of Latin Poets has often imitated long passages, and sometimes copied whole lines, from the Father of Roman Song. This has been shown, in a close comparison, by Macrobius, in his Saturnalia211.

Lucretius and Ovid have also frequently availed themselves of the works of Ennius. His description of felling the trees of a forest, in order to fit out a fleet against the Carthaginians, in the seventh book, has been imitated by Statius in the tenth book of the Thebaid. The passage in his sixth satire, in which he has painted the happy situation of a parasite, compared with that of the master of a feast, is copied in Terence’s Phormio214. The following beautiful lines have been imitated by innumerable poets, both ancient and modern:

Near the commencement of his Annals, Ennius says,

which solemn passage has been parodied by Horace, in the second satire of the first book:

Thus it appears that Ennius occasionally produced verses of considerable harmony and beauty, and that his conceptions were frequently expressed with energy and spirit. It must be recollected, however, that the lines imitated by Virgil, and the other passages which have been here extracted from the works of Ennius, are very favourable specimens of his taste and genius. Sometimes poems, which have themselves been lost, and of which only fragments are preserved, in the citations of contemporary or succeeding authors, are now believed to have been finer productions than they perhaps actually were. It is the best passages which are quoted, and imitated, and are thus upborne on the tide of ages, while the grosser parts have sunk and perished in the flood. We are in this manner led to form an undue estimate of the excellence of [pg 93]the whole, in the same manner as we doubtless conceive an exaggerated idea of the ancient magnificence of Persepolis or Palmyra, where, while the humble dwellings have mouldered into dust, the temples and pyramids remain, and all that meets the eye is towering and majestic. A few, however, even of the verses of Ennius which have been preserved, are very harsh, and defective in their mechanical construction; others are exceedingly prosaic, as,

has appeared better founded than the first. Scaliger, however, has termed him, “Poeta antiquus magnifico ingenio: Utinam hunc haberemus integrum, et amisissemus Lucanum, Statium, Silium Italicum, et tous ces garcons la216.” Quintilian has happily enough compared the writings of Ennius to those sacred groves hallowed by their antiquity, and which we do not so much admire for their beauty, as revere with religious [pg 94]awe and dread217. Hence, if we cannot allow Ennius to be crowned with the poetical laurel, we may at least grant the privilege conceded to him by Propertius—

Politian, in his Nutricia, has recapitulated the events of the life of Ennius, and has given perhaps the most faithful summary of his character, both as a man and a poet—

But whatever may have been the merits of the works of Ennius, of which we are now but incompetent judges, they were at least sufficiently various. Epic, dramatic, satiric, and didactic poetry, were all successively attempted by him; and we also learn that he exercised himself in lighter sorts of verse, as the epigram and acrostic218. For this novelty and exuberance it is not difficult to account. The fountains of Greek literature, as yet untasted in Latium, were to him inexhaustible sources. He stood in very different circumstances from those Greek bards who had to rely solely on their own genius, or from his successors in Latin poetry, who wrote after the best productions of Greece had become familiar to the Romans. He was placed in a situation in which he could enjoy all the popularity and applause due to originality, without undergoing the labour of invention, and might rapidly run with success through every mode of the lyre, without possessing incredible diversity of genius.

The above criticisms apply to the poetical productions of Ennius; but the most curious point connected with his literary history is his prose translation of the celebrated work of Euhemerus, entitled, Ἱερα Αναγραφη. Euhemerus is generally supposed to have been an inhabitant of Messene, a city of Peloponnesus. Being sent, as he represented, on a voyage of discovery by Cassander, King of Macedon, he came to an island called Panchaia, in the capital of which, Panara, he found a temple of the Tryphilian Jupiter, where stood a column inscribed with a register of the births and deaths of many of the gods. Among these, he specified Uranus, his sons Pan and Saturn, and his daughters Rhea and Ceres; as also Jupiter, Juno, and Neptune, who were the offspring of Saturn. Ac[pg 95]cordingly, the design of Euhemerus was to show, by investigating their actions, and recording the places of their births and burials, that the mythological deities were mere mortal men, raised to the rank of gods on account of the benefits which they had conferred on mankind,—a system which, according to Meiners and Warburton, formed the grand secret revealed at the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries219. The translation by Ennius, as well as the original work, is lost; but many particulars concerning Euhemerus, and the object of his history, are mentioned in a fragment of Diodorus Siculus, preserved by Eusebius. Some passages have also been saved by St. Augustine; and long quotations, have been made by Lactantius, in his treatise De Falsa Religione. These, so far as they extend, may be regarded as the truest and purest sources of mythological history, though not much followed in our modern Pantheons.

Plutarch, who was associated to the priesthood, and all who were interested in the support of the vulgar creed, maintained, that the whole work of Euhemerus, with his voyage to Panchaia, was an impudent fiction; and, in particular, it was urged, that no one except Euhemerus had ever seen or heard of the land of Panchaia220: that the Panchaia Tellus had indeed been described in a flowery and poetical style, both by Diodorus Siculus and Virgil—

but not in such a manner as to determine its geographical position.

The truth, however, of the relation contained in the work of Euhemerus, has been vindicated by modern writers; who have attempted to prove that Panchaia was an island of the Red Sea, which Euhemerus had actually visited in the course of his voyage222. But whether Euhemerus merely recorded what he had seen, or whether the whole book was a device and contrivance of his own, it seems highly probable that the translation of Ennius gave rise to the belief of many Roman philosophers, who maintained, or insinuated, their conviction of the mortality of the gods, and whose writings have been so frequently appealed to by Farmer, in his able disquisition on the prevalence of the Worship of Human Spirits.

It is clear, that notwithstanding their observance of prodigies and religious ceremonies, there prevailed a considerable spirit of free-thinking among the Romans in the age of Ennius. [pg 96]This is apparent, not merely from his translation of Euhemerus, and definition of the nature of Jupiter, in his Epicharmus, but from various passages in dramas adapted for public representation, which deride the superstitions of augurs and soothsayers, as well as the false ideas entertained of the worshipped divinities. Polybius, too, who flourished shortly after Ennius, speaks of the fear of the gods, and the inventions of augury, merely as an excellent political engine, at the same time that he reprehends the rashness and absurdity of those who were endeavouring to extirpate such useful opinions223.

The dramatic career which had been commenced by Livius Andronicus and Ennius, was most successfully prosecuted by