and these lines enumerating the various priesthoods established by Numa,—

Yet, in spite of these imperfections, both his rhythm and language produce the impression of power and originality. With all the roughness and irregularity of his measure, and notwithstanding the inharmonious structure of continuous passages, his lines often have a weighty and impressive effect, like that produced by some of the great passages in Lucretius and Virgil. It is said of the rhetorician Aelian that he excessively admired in Ennius both 'the greatness of his mind and the grandeur of his metre[95].' Something of this sonorous grandeur may be recognised in a fragment descriptive of the havoc made by woodcutters in a great forest,—a passage in which the language of Ennius again appears as a connecting link between that of Homer and of Virgil:—

In the longest consecutive passages,—the dream of Ilia, the auspices of Romulus, and that from book seventh, already quoted as illustrative of the poet's character,—there is, notwithstanding the roughness of the lines, something also of Homeric rapidity;—a quality which the Latin hexameter never afterwards attained in elevated poetry.

The diction also of the Annals is generally fresh and forcible, sometimes vividly imaginative. But perhaps the most admirable quality of its style is a grave simplicity and sincerity of tone. Especially is this the case in passages expressing appreciation of strength and grandeur of character, as in those fragments from the speeches of Pyrrhus and of Appius Claudius Caecus, already quoted, and in the famous lines commemorative of the resolute character and momentous services of Fabius Maximus.

These lines leave on the mind the same impression of antique majesty, as is produced by the unadorned record of character and work accomplished inscribed on the tombs of the Scipios.

This truly Roman quality of style, depending on a strong imaginative sense of reality, is one of the great elements of power in the language of Lucretius.

III. CHIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS GENIUS AND INTELLECT.

III.—From a review of the extant fragments both of the Tragedies and the Annals of Ennius, it appears that his prominent place in Roman literature, and influence over his countrymen, were due much more to a great productiveness and activity, and to an original force of mind and character, than to any artistic skill displayed in the conception or execution of his works. A consideration of the spirit and purpose of his greatest works has led to the conclusion that they were, in a considerable measure, inspired by the genius of Rome, and were thus rather the starting-point of a new literature than the mechanical reproduction of the literature of the Greeks. It remains to consider what inference may be formed from these fragments as to the character of his genius, of his imaginative sentiment and moral sympathies, and of his intellectual power.

The force of many single expressions in these fragments, and the power with which various incidents, situations, and characters, are brought before the mind indicate an active imagination. A sense of energy and life-like movement is the prevailing impression produced by a study of the language and the longer passages in these remains. Many single lines and expressions that have been gathered accidentally, as mere isolated phrases, disjoined from the context in which they originally occurred, bear traces of the ardour with which they were cast into shape. In longer passages, the whole heart, sense, and understanding of the writer seem to be thrown into his narrative. He has not the eye of a poetic artist who observes, as it were, from a distance, and fixes as in a picture, some phase of passionate feeling or some beautiful aspect of repose. He suggests rather the idea of a man of practical energy, who has been present and taken part in the action described, who enters with living interest into every detail, and watches it at the same time with a sagacious discernment and a strong enthusiasm. His power as a narrative poet is the power of forcibly reproducing the outward movement and the inward meaning of an action, and of identifying himself with the hearts and minds of the actors on the scene. Several passages, wanting altogether in poetical beauty, yet arrest the attention by this energy and realism of conception; as, for example, this short and rugged fragment, descriptive of a commander in the crisis of a battle (probably that of Cynoscephalae),—

Even in the abrupt dislocation from their context these lines leave on the mind an impression of the calm vigilance of a general, and of his confidence, not unmixed with anxiety, in 'the long-enduring hearts' of his men. The same truth and energy of conception, with more poetical accompaniment, may be recognised in the longer passages, from Book vii. and Book i., already quoted or referred to.

But the imaginative power which gives poetical meaning to familiar objects and ideas is revealed by the force of many single expressions and by the delineation of more passionate situations. Such expressions as the following, most of which reappear with an antique lustre in the gold of Virgil's diction, are indicative of this higher power.

These and similar phrases, some of which have already been quoted, imply poetical creativeness. They tend to justify the estimate of the genius of Ennius, indicated in the language of high admiration applied to him by Lucretius,—

and in the signs of the careful study of the Annals which may be traced in the elaborate workmanship of the Aeneid.

The longest specimen of narrative vivified by poetical feeling, from the hand of Ennius, is the passage in which the vestal Ilia relates to her sister the dream that portended her great and strange destiny:—

Though these lines are rough and inharmonious as compared with the rhythm of Catullus or Virgil, yet they flow more smoothly and rapidly than any of the other fragments preserved from Ennius. The impression of gentleness and tender affection produced by the speech of Ilia, implies some dramatic skill in the conception of character. And there is real imaginative power shown in the sense of hurry and surprise, of vague awe and helplessness conveyed in the lines—

From this passage Virgil has borrowed one of the finest touches in his delineation of the passion of Dido, the sense of horror and desolation haunting the Carthaginian queen in her dreams—

Another of the most impressive passages in the early books of the Aeneid—the dream in which Hector appears to Aeneas[101]—was evidently suggested by the description which Ennius gave of the appearance of the shade of Homer to himself. Some of his dramatic fragments, also, as for instance the scene between Hecuba and Cassandra already referred to, show a real power of conceiving and representing passionate situations.

Among the modes of imaginative sentiment by which the poetry of Ennius is pervaded, those kindled by patriotic enthusiasm are most conspicuous. In the manifestation of his enthusiasm, he shows an affinity to Virgil in ancient, and to Scott in modern times. He resembles them in their mingled feelings of veneration and affection which they entertain towards the national heroes of old times, and the great natural features of their country, associated with historic memories and legendary renown. Such feelings are shown by Ennius in the lines of tender regret and true hero-worship, which express the sorrow of Senate and people at the death of Romulus—

They appear also in the language applied by him to the sacred river of Rome, which had preserved the founder of the city from his untimely fate, and which was thus inseparably identified with the national destiny—

and also in this fragment—

The enumeration of the great warlike races in the line

may recall the pride and enthusiasm which are kindled in the heart of Virgil by the names of the various tribes of Italy, and of places renowned for their fame in story, or their picturesque environment[103]. This fond use of proper names recalling old associations or the charm of natural scenery is also among the most familiar characteristics of the poetry of Scott.

It was seen in the introductory chapter that the Roman mind was peculiarly susceptible of that kind of feeling, which perhaps may best be described as the sense of majesty. This vein of poetical emotion is also conspicuous in the fragments of Ennius. His language shows a deep sense of greatness and order, both in the material world and in human affairs. Thus his style appears animated not only by vital force, but by an impressive solemnity, befitting the grave and dignified emotion which responds to such ideas. This susceptibility of his genius appears in such expressions as these—

and again in the following—

and in the epithet which Cicero quotes as applied to cities—

His imagination appears also to have been impressed by that sense of outward pomp and magnificence which exercised a strong spell on the Roman mind in all ages, and obtained its most complete and permanent realisation in the architecture of the Empire. A short passage from one of his tragedies, the Andromache, may be quoted as illustrative of this influence, even in the writings of Ennius, though naturally it is much more apparent in the style of those poets who witnessed the grandeur of Rome in her later era:—

While his peculiar poetical feeling is present chiefly in the fragments of the Annals, the moral elements of his poetry may be gathered both from his epic and dramatic remains. Strength and dignity of character are the qualities with which his own nature was most in sympathy. Yet in delineating the agitation of Ilia, the shame of Cassandra, and the sorrow of Andromache, he reveals also much tenderness of feeling,—the not unusual accompaniment of the manly genius of Rome. A similar tenderness is found in union with the grave tones of Pacuvius and Accius, and in still greater measure with the fortitude of Lucretius and the majesty of Virgil. The masculine qualities which most stir his enthusiasm are the Roman virtues of resolution (constantia), sincerity, magnanimity, capacity for affairs. Thus a latent glow of feeling may be discerned in the lines which record the brave resolution of the Roman people during the first hardships of the war with Pyrrhus—

and in this strong and scornful triumph over natural sorrow, from the Telamon:—

The generosity and courage of a magnanimous nature are stamped upon the kingly speech which he puts into the mouth of Pyrrhus. A frank sincerity of character reveals itself in such passages as the following:—

There is no subtlety nor rhetorical point in the expression of his serious convictions. The very style of the tragedies, which, as Cicero says[108], 'does not depart from the natural order of the words,' is a symbol of frankness and straightforwardness.

He shows also, in his delineations of character, high appreciation of practical wisdom, and of its most powerful instrument in a free State, the persuasive power of oratory. This appreciation is expressed in the lines so much admired by Cicero and Aulus Gellius[109], though ridiculed by the purism of Seneca:

He seems to admire the sterling qualities of character and intellect rather than the brilliant manifestations of impulse and genius. He celebrates the heroism of brave endurance rather than of chivalrous daring[111]; the fortitude that, in the long run, wins success, and saves the State[112], rather than the impetuous valour which achieves a barren glory; the sincerity and simplicity which are stronger than art, yet that know when to speak and when to be silent[113]; the sagacity which enables men to understand their circumstances, and to turn them to the best account[114].

Many of his fragments, again, show traces of that just and vigorous understanding of human life, and that shrewdness of observation, which constitute a great satirist. The didactic tone of satire appears, for instance, in the following lines—

a fragment which might be compared with certain passages in the Epistles of Horace, which give expression to the ennui experienced as a result of the inaction and luxurious living of the Augustan age. But a closer parallel will be found in a passage where Lucretius has assumed something of the caustic tone of Roman satire—

While Ennius, like Lucretius, gives little indication of humour, yet the folly and superstition of his times provoke him into tones of contemptuous irony, especially where he has to expose the arts of false prophets and fortune-tellers. The men of the manliest temper and the strongest understanding in ancient times were most intolerant of this mischievous form of imposture and credulity. Thus Thucydides, in general so reserved in his expression of personal feeling, treats, with a manifest irony, all supernatural pretences to foresee or control the future. The tone in which Ennius writes of such professions reminds us of Milton's grim contempt for

Thus, in a fragment of Book xi. of the Annals, the fears excited by the prophets and diviners at the commencement of the war with Antiochus are encountered with the pertinent question—

Thus too the pretensions and the ignorance of astrologers are exposed in a line of one of the dramas—

And the following passage may be quoted as applicable to charlatans of every kind, in every age and country—

There are passages of the same spirit to be found among the fragments of Pacuvius and Accius.

There is not much indication of speculative thought in any of these fragments. The blunt sentiment which Ennius puts into the mouth of Neoptolemus probably expressed his own mental attitude towards the schools of philosophy—

His observations on life are neither of an imaginative, of a deeply reflective, nor of a purely satiric character. Unlike the thoughts of the Greek dramatists, they make no attempt to solve the painful riddle of the world; they want the universality and systematic basis of philosophical truths; they are expressed neither with the pointed wit nor with the ironical humour of satire. They are the maxims of a strong common sense and the dictates of a grave rectitude of will. They are practical, not speculative. They have their origin in a sense of duty rather than of consequences. They are in conformity with the ideal realised in the best types of Roman character; and they bear witness to the sterling worth combined with the ardent enthusiasm, and the practical sense united to the strong imagination of the poet.

Such appear to be the chief attributes of genius and imaginative sentiment, and the chief moral and intellectual features indicated in the fragments of Ennius. It is not indeed possible, from the tenor of single passages, to judge of the composition of a whole drama or of a continuous book of the Annals. No single scene or speech can afford sufficient grounds for inferring the amount of creative power with which his characters were conceived and sustained in all their complex relations. Yet enough has appeared in these fragments, which, from the accidental mode of their preservation, must be regarded as the ordinary samples and not chosen specimens of his style, to confirm the ancient belief in his pre-eminence and to determine the prevailing characteristics of his genius. There is ample evidence of the great popularity which he enjoyed among his countrymen, and of the high estimate which many of the best Roman writers formed of his power. It is recorded that great crowds ('magna frequentia') attended the public reading of the Annals. Virgil was said to have introduced many lines into the Aeneid, with the view of pleasing a public devoted to Ennius ('populus Ennianus'). The title of Ennianista was assumed by a public reader of the Annals in the time of Hadrian[118]. Cicero often speaks of the poet as 'noster Ennius,' and quotes him with all the signs of hearty admiration and affection. The numerous references in his works to the Annals and the Tragedies imply also a thorough familiarity with these poems on the part of the readers for whom his philosophical and rhetorical treatises were written. The criticism of Quintilian, 'Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus, in quibus grandia et antiqua robora jam non tantam habent speciem quantam religionem[119],' expresses a sentiment of traditional reverence as well as of personal appreciation. Aulus Gellius, a writer of the time of Hadrian, often quotes and comments upon him with hearty and genial sympathy. The greatest among the Roman poets also, directly and indirectly, acknowledge their admiration. The strong testimony of Lucretius, the most imaginative poet and the most powerful thinker whom Rome produced, is alone sufficient to establish the fame of Ennius as a man of remarkable force and genius. The spirit of the Annals still lives in the antique charm and national spirit which make the epic poem of Virgil the truest representation of Roman feeling which has come down to modern times. By Ovid he is characterised as—

Horace, although more reluctant and grudging in his admiration, yet allows the 'Calabrian Muse' to be the best preserver of the fame of the great Scipio. Even the disparaging lines—

are a strong testimony in favour of the esteem in which the vigour and sagacity of Ennius were held by those who had all his works in their hands. As one of the founders of Roman literature, it was impossible that he could have rivalled the careful and finished style of the Augustan poets; but, by his rude and energetic labours, he laid the strong groundwork on which later poets built their fame.

He has been exposed to more serious detraction in modern times, as the corrupter of the pure stream of early Roman poetry. It is alleged against him by Niebuhr, that through jealousy he suppressed the ballad and epic poetry of the early bards. The answer to this charge has already been given. There is no evidence to prove that any such poems were in existence in the time of Ennius. By other modern scholars he is disadvantageously compared with Naevius, who is held up to admiration as the last of the genuine Roman minstrels. Naevius appears indeed to have been a remarkable and original man, yet his very scanty fragments do not afford sufficient evidence to justify the reversal of the verdict of antiquity on the relative greatness and importance of the two poets. The old Roman party, in opposition to whom Ennius and his friends are supposed to have introduced the new taste and suppressed the old, never showed any zeal in favour of poetry of any kind. Cato, their only literary representative, wrote prose treatises on antiquities and agriculture, and in one of his speeches reproached Fulvius Nobilior for the consideration which he showed to Ennius. The evidence of these epic and dramatic fragments which have just been considered, is all in favour of the high verdict of antiquity on the importance and pre-eminence of the author of the Annals. Whatever in the later poets is most truly Roman in sentiment and morality appears to be conceived in the spirit of Ennius.

He stands out prominently in that early time as a man of true genius, and of a strong and original character. His lot was not cast, like that of the Augustan poets, in the midst of a refined and courtly society, with all the aids and appliances of literary leisure, and in secure exemption from any harsh collision with the world. Neither was he a poetical artist, like Catullus, yielding himself up to the enjoyment of beauty, and reproducing in his verse the charm which he had found in life, in Nature, and in earlier art. His poetry was the serious product of a manly and energetic life, and of a vital interest in the great affairs of his time. Till middle life he is dimly discerned as an obscure Messapian soldier, claiming descent from an old race of kings, and a stranger to the great city which in after times regarded him as the father of her literature. In mature manhood, and in a kindly old age, he is seen exercising a constant literary industry in manifold ways, living plainly and in cheerful independence, applauded by his fellow-citizens, and honoured by the friendship of the greatest among his contemporaries.

The variety and extent of his works bear witness to remarkable learning, as well as a strong productive energy. With a wide knowledge of Greek literature, he combined the heart and will of a Roman; and to the study of the best books he added a close contact with men. Expressions in his remains indicate the opposite religious feelings and convictions of a mystic and a sceptic. In his temper and character a high self-consciousness appears united with a true simplicity and hearty appreciation of others, and a great gravity of tone and purpose with a cheerful and sanguine spirit. His moral sympathies are most deeply moved by such qualities as fortitude, magnanimity, and practical wisdom; and the transparent sincerity of his words gives assurance that he himself was formed out of the same true metal which he recognised in 'the old manners and men' of his adopted country.

In his poetry he represented the traditions and the steady continuous growth of the Roman State, and expressed the confidence which the people reposed in their destiny, their institutions, and their leading men. His dramas, although founded on Greek models, and dealing with Greek legends and personages, yet had a real national air in the type of character they presented, in the sentiments they expressed, and in the lessons of life they inculcated. His epic poem was in form, spirit, and substance, inspired by the genius of his country, and was finished with the strong and massive execution of Roman workmanship[121]. While discarding the native Saturnian measure, as unequal to the elevated tone of a long narrative poem, he moulded the Latin language to the conditions of a new metre, which, in later times, was successfully wrought into the most expressive organ of the majesty of Rome. In his reproduction of the Homeric mythology, he has embodied the idea of the national destiny. The characteristic sentiment of his poetry indicates his affinity not to Homer and Sophocles, but to Lucretius and Virgil. There are gleams also of true creative power in these fragments. If wanting in the fine accomplishment and the contemplative faculty of a poetic artist, he seems to have possessed a strength and energy of conception unsurpassed by any of his successors. He was endowed also with that living power which gives new meaning to familiar things; which, without distorting or exaggerating the truth, discerns and reveals the glory and grandeur in the actual march of events.