Quintus Ennius (Latin pronunciation:[ˈkᶣiːnt̪ʊs̺ˈɛnːiʊs̺];c. 239 – c. 169 BCE) was a writer and poet who lived during theRoman Republic. He is often considered the father ofRoman poetry. He was born in the small town ofRudiae,^[1] located near modernLecce (ancientCalabria, todaySalento), a town founded by theMessapians, and could speakGreek as well asLatin andOscan (his native language).^[2] Although only fragments of his works survive, his influence inLatin literature was significant, particularly in his use of Greek literary models.

Ennius
Double herm with the portrait of the Roman poetsVirgil or Ennius
Born	Quintus Ennius c. 239 BCE Rudiae,Roman Republic
Died	c. 169 BCE
Occupation	Poet
Genre	Epic poetry

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.^[3] Some lines of theAnnales, as well as ancient testimonies, for example, suggest that Ennius opened his epic with a recollection of a dream in which the ancient epic-writerHomer informed him that his spirit had been reborn into Ennius.^[4] It is true that the doctrine of thetransmigration of souls once flourished in the areas of Italy settled by Greeks, but the statement might have been no more than a literary flourish. Ennius seems to have been given to making large claims, as in the report byMaurus Servius Honoratus that he claimed descent from Messapus, the legendary king of his native district.^[5] The partially Hellenised city ofRudiae (in modernApulia), his place of birth, was certainly in the area settled by theMessapians. And this, he used to say, according toAulus Gellius, had endowed him with a triple linguistic and cultural heritage, fancifully described as "three hearts… Greek,Oscan and Latin".^[6]

The public career of Ennius first really emerges in middle life, when he was serving in the army with the rank ofcenturion during theSecond Punic War. While inSardinia in the year 204 BCE, he is said to have attracted the attention ofCato 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 wereScipio Africanus andFulvius Nobilior, whom he accompanied on his Aetolian campaign (189). Afterwards he made the capture ofAmbracia, at which he was present, the subject of a play and of an episode in theAnnales. It was through the influence of Nobilior's sonQuintus that Ennius subsequently obtained Roman citizenship. But he himself lived plainly and simply in the literary quarter on theAventine Hill with the poetCaecilius Statius, a fellow adapter of Greek plays.

At about the age of 70 Ennius died, immediately after producing his tragedyThyestes. 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 theOlympic 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]

Ennius continued the nascent literary tradition by writing plays in Greek and Roman style (praetextae andpalliatae), as well as his most famous work, a historical epic in hexameters called theAnnales. Other minor works include theEpicharmus,Epigrammata, theEuhemerus, theHedyphagetica,Praecepta/Protrepticus,Saturae (orSatires),Scipio, andSota.^[8]

TheAnnales was anepic poem in fifteen books, later expanded to eighteen, covering Roman history from the fall ofTroy in 1184 BCE down to the censorship ofCato the Elder in 184 BCE. It was the first Latin poem to adopt thedactylic hexameter metre used in Greek epic and didactic poetry,^[9] leading it to become the standard metre for these genres in Latin poetry. TheAnnals became a school text for Roman schoolchildren, eventually supplanted byVirgil'sAeneid. About 600 lines survive.

TheEpicharmus was inspired by the philosophical hypotheses developed by the Sicilian poet and philosopherEpicharmus of Kos, after which Ennius's work took its name.^[10][11] In theEpicharmus, 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 theuniverse.^[12]

TheEuhemerus presented atheological doctrine based on the ideas ofEuhemerus of Messene, who argued that the gods ofOlympus were not supernatural powers that interfere in the lives of humans, but rather heroes of old whoafter death were eventually regarded as deities due to their valor, bravery, or cultural impact (this belief is now known aseuhemerism). BothCicero andLactantius write that theEuhemerus was a "translat[ion] and a recount[ing]" of Euhemerus's original work theSacred History, but it is unclear if this means Ennius simply translated the original from Greek into Latin, or added in his own elements. Most of what is preserved of this work comes to us from Lactantius, and these snippets suggest that theEuhemerus was a prose text.^[13]

TheHedyphagetica took much of its substance from thegastronomicalepic ofArchestratus 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. TheHedyphagetica is written inhexameters, but differs from theAnnales in regards to "metrical practices"; this difference is largely due to each works' distinct subject matter.^[14]

The titlesPraecepta andProtrepticus were likely used to refer to the same (possibly exhortatory) work. However, given this work's almost non-existent nature (only the wordpannibus—an "unusual" form of the wordpannis, meaning "rags"—is preserved in the work of theLatingrammarianCharisius), this position is extremely difficult to verify.^[8][15]

TheSaturae 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'sScipio was a work (possibly apanegyric poem) that apparently celebrated the life and deeds ofScipio 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 theAnnales, and others have said that the work was written after Scipio's 201 BCE triumph that followed theBattle of Zama (202 BCE).^[17]

TheSota was a poem, potentially of some length, named after the Greek poetSotades. The work, which followed a metre established by Sotades known as the "Sotadeus", concerned itself with a number of disparate topics and ideas.^[18]

• 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.

• Latin literature
• List of ancient Romans
• Prosody (Latin)

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• Editors ofEncyclopædia Britannica (10 February 2016)."Ennius".Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved1 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.
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• Merry, William Walter, ed. (1891).Selected Fragments of Roman Poetry: From the Earliest Times of the Republic to the Augustan Age.Oxford, UK:Clarendon Press.
• Smith, William (1852). "Rudiae".A Smaller Classical Dictionary. London, England:John Murray. Retrieved1 August 2018.

• Bettini, M. (1979).Studi e note su Ennio. Pisa: Giardini.
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• Fitzgerald, W., andEmily 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.doi:10.2307/284274.JSTOR 284274.
• Goldschmidt, N. (2012). "Absent Presence: Pater Ennius in Renaissance Europe".Classical Receptions Journal.4:1–19.doi:10.1093/crj/clr011.
• Goldschmidt, Nora (2013).Shaggy Crowns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199681297.001.0001.ISBN 9780199681297.
• Jocelyn, H. D. Ennius (Q. Ennius). (1967).The Tragedies of Ennius: The Fragments. Edited by Henry David Jocelyn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Jocelyn, Henry David (1972). "The Poems of Quintus Ennius". In Temporini, Hildegard; Haase, Wolfgang (eds.).Recht, Religion, Sprache und Literatur (Bis zum Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts v. CHR.).doi:10.1515/9783110836417-036.ISBN 9783110836417.
• Morgan, Llewelyn (2014). "A Metrical Scandal in Ennius".The Classical Quarterly.64:152–159.doi:10.1017/S0009838813000608.S2CID 170339848.
• Sciarrino, Enrica (2006). "The Introduction of Epic in Rome: Cultural Thefts and Social Contests".Arethusa.39 (3):449–469.doi:10.1353/are.2006.0029.S2CID 143731031.
• Skutsch, O. (1968).Studia Enniana. London: Athlone.
• Ennius, Quintus (1985). Skutsch, Otto (ed.).The Annals of Quintus Ennius. p. 70.doi:10.1093/oseo/instance.00075748.ISBN 9780198144489.

•   Quotations related toEnnius at Wikiquote
•   LatinWikisource has original text related to this article:Ennius
•   Media related toQuintus Ennius at Wikimedia Commons
• Fragments of Ennius'Annals atThe Latin Library; text from Wordsworth (1874), line numbering from Warmington (1935)
• Ennius'Annales: text and translation of all fragments atattalus.org; adapted from Warmington (1935)
• Ennius: translation of selected fragments atelfinspell.com; fromSpecimens 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.
•   This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ennius, Quintus".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 9 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 648–49.