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ROUDIAI (Ancient city) PUGLIA
Ennius Quintus, the "father of Roman poetry", was born at Rudiae in
Calabria, B.C. 239. He served in the Second Punic War and held the post of centurion
in Sardinia, whence he was brought to Rome by Cato , B.C. 204. We have no ground
for attributing to Cato any appreciation of Ennius's poetical gifts; he was no
doubt attracted by his vigour and practical capacity. Established at Rome, Ennius
gained a livelihood by giving instruction in the Greek language and by translating
Greek plays for the Roman stage. His talents soon brought him recognition. Among
those who honoured him with their friendship was the great Africanus, beside whose
tomb the poet's bust is said to have been placed. In B.C. 189, he accompanied
the consul M. Fulvius Nobilior into his province of Aetolia, expressly to record
his exploits. In grateful recollection of this service the son of Fulvius in B.C.
184, with the approval of the people, assigned him a lot among the triumviri coloniae
deducendae, thus constituting him a Roman citizen. To this he alludes in the last
book of his Annales with justifiable pride, Nos sumu' Romani, qui fuimus ante
Rudini. His honours did not, however, bring him wealth. Cicero relates that his
old age was passed in poverty, but he did not allow this to cloud his genial temper.
He is said to have keenly enjoyed the pleasures of convivial intercourse, and
died of an attack of the gout at the age of seventy (B.C. 169).
Ennius was a remarkably prolific writer, and left untouched few departments
of poetical composition. He probably did not commence his literary career till
middle life, and he certainly continued it till the time of his death ( Cic. Brut.78).
In the absence of certain data for determining the chronological order of his
writings, it will be best to enumerate them in the order of their importance.
His chief work was the Annales, an epic chronicle of Roman history and legend
from the time of Aeneas to his own day, in eighteen books, written in hexameter
verse. The first twelve books formed a connected poem, and may have been published
together B.C. 172 (cf. Aul. Gell. xvii.21.43), though Teuffel thinks the whole
work was issued in successive parts of three books each. Of this renowned work,
so justly celebrated in antiquity, which gained for its author the title of "the
Roman Homer", sufficient fragments still remain to enable us to appreciate
the qualities of his genius, and to deplore the loss of historical and literary
material which it contained. The first book seems to have been the most poetical,
and is naturally the most often quoted. The longest passages we possess are the
Dream of Hia and the Auspices of Romulus and Remus, about ten lines each. The
second and third books continued the regal period to its close, but are almost
entirely lost to us. In all these the poet made a free use of supernatural machinery.
The fourth, fifth, and sixth books began the Annales proper and carried the history
of the Republic down to the conquest of Italy and the war with Pyrrhus; of these
we possess a few short but striking fragments. In the third triad the Punic Wars
were described -the first briefly, as having been already treated by Naevius (for
whose rude Saturnian verse Ennius shows much contempt); the second, in which he
himself had been an actor, at greater length and not without mythological embellishment.
The thirteenth book began with a fresh exordium, as also did the sixteenth, which
headed the closing series and brought the history down to B.C. 181 at least, if
not somewhat later. The poem gained immediate popularity. It is recorded that
large crowds attended its public recitation, and Vergil is said to have "introduced
many lines into the Aeneid with the view of pleasing a people devoted to Ennius"
(populus Ennianus). Its high estimation continued far into the times of the Empire,
as we know from abundant evidence. It is not until Macrobius that we find it falling
into neglect.
Next in importance to the Annales come the tragedies. These were free
imitations of Greek dramas, generally those of Euripides, though a few recall
by their titles the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles. The list is thus given by
Ribbeck: Achilles, Achilles (from Aristarchus), Aiax, Alcumena, Alexander, Andromache
Aechmalotis, Andromeda, Athamas, Cresphontes, Erechtheus, Eumenides, Hectoris
Lutra (or Lustra), Hecuba, Iphigenia, Medea Atheniensis, Medea Exul, Menalippa,
Nemea, Phoenix, Telamo, Telephus, Thyestes. Their composition extended over the
whole period of his literary life, B.C. 204-169, in which latter year the Thyestes
was written. It has been doubted whether Ennius used the chorus. If not, such
a play as the Eumenides, where the chorus is the chief character, would have had
to be entirely recast; and, besides, the criticisms of the Ars Poetica presuppose
a Roman tragic chorus. The reservation of the orchestra for the senators' seats
would, of course, make choral evolutions impossible; but with this exception the
plays of Ennius were closely modelled on their Greek originals. The magniloquence
of their style and their moral grandeur made them special favourites with the
public. Cicero gives them high praise, and it is to him that we are indebted for
the greater part of the scanty fragments that remain. A praetexta, entitled Sabinae
(Rape of the Sabine Women), has been attributed to Ennius by Vahlen from a passage
of Iulius Victor, and there is some ground for conjecturing that the Ambracia
was a drama of the same class, celebrating the deeds of Fulvius.
There also remain, besides the titles, some insignificant traces of
two comedies by him -Cupuncula and Pancratiastes. But his bent of mind was unsuited
for comedy, and he is mentioned by Volcacius Sedigitus only antiquitatis causa!
Ennius was addicted to philosophical speculations. His convictions
oscillated between the mystic doctrines of Pythagoras and the scepticism of Euhemerus.
Both found expression in his works. In the Annales he mentioned that the soul
of Homer migrated into his own. In the Epicharmus, a distant precursor of the
De Rerum Natura, written in trochaic tetrameters, he explained the tenets of Pythagoreanism.
In the Euhemerus (erroneously supposed by some to have been a prose work) he adopted
the mythologic theory of that superficial writer. It is probable that both these
works formed part of the four (or six) books of Saturae -i. e. miscellaneous poems
in various metres. To these, also, belonged the Sota, mentioned by Varro; the
Protrepticus, or "Art of Life"; the Hedyphagetica, a treatise on gastronomics,
based on that of Archestratus of Gela; and a few epigrams, the most celebrated
of which were the epitaphs on Africanus and on himself.
Ennius was filled with a proud and noble self-consciousness. He entered Rome:
1. as a missionary of culture and free-thought; and
2. as a consecrator of ancient tradition.
He gave to Latin literature an impulse it never quite lost. In nearly every field
he led the van. To him, more than to any one, it owes its predominant tone of
sober directness and moral strength. In him Greek culture, grafted on an Oscan
or Messapian stock, combined with Roman patriotism to form for the first time
that special intellectual type, enthusiastic but disciplined, imitative yet independent,
Hellenic in source but in development intensely national, which we can trace all
through the subsequent course of Roman letters, and most conspicuously in their
best and most illustrious representatives. In formal polish he was no doubt deficient;
yet he is often imitated by later writers, and by none with happier effect than
Vergil.
Bibliography
The earliest edition of his fragments was in the Fragm. Poet. Vet. Lat. a Rob.
Stephano Congesta, etc. (Henr. Stephanus, Paris, 1564). Far more complete was
the edition of Hieronymus Columna (Naples, 1590), reprinted with the emendations
and commentaries of M. A. Debrius and G. I. Voss by F. Hesselius of Rotterdam
(Amsterdam, 1707).
The best modern edition of the whole of Ennius is that of Vahlen (Leipzig,
1854). He is also included in Wordsworth's Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin
(Oxford, 1874), and in L. Muller's Enn. Carm. Reliquiae, accedunt Cn. Naevi Belli
Poenici quae supersunt (St. Petersburg, 1885).
In the year 1595, Paulus Merula published at Leyden an edition of
the Annales, which, among other alterations, included additional fragments said
to come from a MS. treatise De Continentia Vett. Poetarum ad Traianum Principem,
by L. Calpurnius Piso. This MS. has never appeared, and its very existence is
suspected. Merula's edition was reprinted with revisions by E. Spangenberg (Leipzig,
1825). Cf. Hoch, De Enn. Ann. Fr. a Paulo Merula Auctis (Bonn, 1839), and J. Lawicki,
De Fraude P. Merulae (Bonn, 1852). Books VII.-IX. (Punic Wars) have been treated
by T. Hug, Dissertatio Inaug. (Bonn, 1852); Book I. by H. Ilberg (Bonn, 1852).
The tragic fragments by M. A. Debrius, in his Syntagma Tragoediae
Latinae I. (Antwerp, 1593), reprinted at Paris in 1607 and 1619; also in the Collectanea
Vett. Tragg. of P. Scriverius (Leyden, 1620). The fragment of the Medea, including
additions to those given by Hessel and Merula, with a dissertation on Roman tragedy,
by H. Planck (Gottingen, 1807). Also in Analecta Crit. Poesis Rom. Sen. Relig.
Illustrantia, by F. Osann (Berlin, 1816). A critical edition of his dramatic fragments,
published by F. H. Bothe, in Poet. Scen. Lat. (Halberstadt, 1821- 1823; Leipzig,
1840). Also in Ribbeck's Scaenicae Rom. Poesis Fragmenta, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1852-55).
Other Ennian fragments are given in Enn. Carm. ed. P. Burmann; in
the Anthol. Vett. Lat. Epigr. et Poem. (Amsterdam, 1759). Of this an enlarged
edition was published by H. Meyer (Leipzig, 1835). The Hedyphagetica fragments
were collected by C. Wernsdorf in the Poetae Lat. Minores, vols. i.-v. part i.
(Altenburg, 1780-88); vol. v. 2, 3-5 (Helmstadt, 1791-99). The ancient authorities
for the poet's life and writings are given by Hessel, Spangenberg, and Teuffel
(Rom. Lit. vol. i.; Eng. edit. London, 1891). Special discussions in Vahlen, Die
Annalen des Ennius (Berlin, 1886); H. Jordan, Quaest. Enn. (Konigsberg, 1885).
For general criticisms of his style and genius, see Patin, Etudes sur la Poesie
Latine, vol. ii. (Paris, 1869); Sellar, R. Poets of Republic, vol. i. (Oxford,
1881).
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Dec 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Ennius, whom the Romans ever regarded with a sort of filial reverence as the parent
of their literature -noster Ennius, our own Ennius, as he is styled with fond
familiarity- was born in the consulship of C. Mamilius Turrinus and C. Valerius
Falto, B. C. 239, the year immediately following that in which the first regular
drama had been exhibited on the Roman stage by Livius Andronicus. The place of
his nativity was Rudiae, a Calabrian village among the hills near Brundusium.
He claimed descent from the ancient lords of Messapia; and after he had become
a convert to the Pythagorean doctrines, was wont to boast that the spirit which
had once animated the body of the immortal Homer, after passing through many tenements,
after residing among others in a peacock, and in the sage of Crotona, had eventually
passed into his own frame. Of his early history we know nothing, except, if we
can trust the loose poetical testimony of Silius and Claudian, that he served
with credit as a soldier, and rose to the rank of a centurion. When M. Porcius
Cato, who had filled the office of quaestor under Scipio in the African war, was
returning home, he found Ennius in Sardinia, became acquainted with his high powers,
and brought him in his train to Rome, our poet being at that time about the age
of thirty-eight. But his military ardour was not yet quenched; for twelve years
afterwards he accompanied M. Fulvius Nobilior during the Aetolian campaign, and
shared his triumph. It is recorded that the victorious general, at the instigation
probably of his literary friend, consecrated the spoils captured from the enemy
to the Muses, and subsequently, when Censor, dedicated a joint temple to Hercules
and the Nine. Through the son of Nobilior, Ennius, when fir advanced in life,
obtained the rights of a citizen, a privilege which at that epoch was guarded
with watchful jealousy, and very rarely granted to an alien. From the period,
however, when lie quitted Sardinia, he seems to have made Rome his chief abode;
for there his great poetical talents, and an amount of learning which must have
been considered marvellous in those days, since he was master of three languages
-Oscan, Latin, and Greek- gained for him the respect and favour of all who valued
such attainments; and, in particular, he lived upon terms of the closest intimacy
with the conqueror of Hannibal and other members of that distinguished family.
Dwelling in a humble mansion on the Aventine, attended by a single female slave,
he maintained himself in honourable poverty by acting as a preceptor to patrician
youths; and having lived on happily to a good age, was carried off by a disease
of the joints, probably gout, when seventy years old, soon after the completion
of his great undertaking, which he closes by comparing himself to a race-horse,
in these prophetic lines:
Like some brave steed, who in his latest race
Hath won the Olympic wreath; the contest o'er,
Sinks to repose, worn out by age and toil.
At the desire of Africanus, his remains were deposited in the sepulchre of the
Scipios, and his bust allowed a place among the effigies of that noble house.
His epitaph, penned by himself in the undoubting anticipation of immortal fame,
has been preserved, and may be literally rendered thus:
Romans, behold old Ennius! whose lays
Built up on high your mighty fathers' praise!
Pour not the wail of mourning o'er my bier,
Nor pay to me the tribute of a tear:
Still, still I live ! from mouth to mouth I fly
!
Never forgotten never shall I die !
The works of Ennius are believed to have existed entire so late as the thirteenth
century, but they have long since disappeared as an independent whole, and nothing
now remains but fragments collected from other ancient writers. These amount in
all to many hundred lines; but a large proportion being quotations cited by grammarians
for the purpose of illustrating some rare form, or determining the signification
of sonic obsolete word, are mere scraps, possessing little interest for any one
but a philologist. Some extracts of a longer and more satisfactory character are
to be found in Cicero, who gives us from the annals -the dream of Hia (18 lines);
the conflicting auspices observed by Romulus and Remus (20 lines); and the speech
of Pyrrhus with regard to ransoming the prisoners (8 lines): besides these, a
passage from the Andromache (18 lines); a curious invective against itinerant
fortune-tellers, probably from the Satires ; and a few others of less importance.
Aulus Gellius has saved eighteen consecutive verses, in which the duties and bearing
of a humble friend towards his superior are bodied forth in very spirited phraseology,
forming a picture which it was believed that the poet intended for a portrait
of hiself, while Macrobius presents us with a battlepiece (8 lines), where a tribune
is described as gallantly resisting the attack of a crowd of foes.
Although under these circumstances it is extremely difficult to form
any accurate judgment with regard to his absolute merits as a poet, we are at
least certain that his success was triumphant. For a long series of years his
strains were read aloud to applauding multitudes, both in the metropolis and in
the provinces; and a class of men arose who, in imitation of the Homeristae, devoted
themselves exclusively to the study and recitation of his works, receiving the
appellation of Ennianistae. In the time of Cicero he was still considered the
prince of Roman song (Ennium summum Epicum poetam -de Opt. G. O. 1. Summus poeta
noster- pro Balb. 22); Virgil was not ashamed to borrow many of his thoughts,
and not a few of his expressions; and even the splendour of the Augustan age failed
to throw him into the shade. And well did he merit the gratitude of his adopted
countrymen; for not only did he lay the basis of their literature, but actually
constructed their language. He found the Latin tongue a rough, meagre, uncultivated
dialect, made up of ill-cemented fragments, gathered at random from a number of
different sources, subject to no rules which might secure its stability, and destitute
of any regular system of verification. He softened its asperities, he enlarged
its vocabulary, he regulated its grammatical combinations, he amalgamated into
one harmonious whole its various conflicting elements, and he introduced the heroic
hexameter, and various other metres, long carefully elaborated by Grecian skill.
Even in the disjointed and mutilated remains which have been transmitted to us,
we observe a vigour of imagination, a national boldness of tone, and an energy
of expression which amply justify the praises so liberally launched on his genius
by the ancients; and although we are perhaps at first repelled by the coarseness,
clumsiness, and antique fashion of the garb in which his high thoughts are invested,
we cannot but feel that what was afterwards gained in smoothness and refinement
is a poor compensation for the loss of that freshness and strength which breathe
the hearty spirit of the brave old days of Roman simplicity and freedom. The criticism
of Ovid,"Ennius ingenio maximus arte rudis", is fair, and happily worded; but
the fine simile of Quintilian, "Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus,
in quibus grandia et antiqua robora, jam non tantam habent speciem, quantam religionem",
more fully embodies our sentiments.
We subjoin a catalogue of the works of Ennius, in so far as their titles can be
ascertained:
I. Annalium Libri XVIII. The most important of all his productions was a history
of Rome in dactylic hexameters, commeneing with the loves of Mars and Rhea, and
reaching down to his own times. The subject was selected with great judgment.
The picturesque fables, romantic legends, and chivalrous exploits with which it
abounded, afforded full scope for the exercises of his poetical powers; he was
enabled to testify gratitude towards his personal friends, and to propitiate the
nobles as a body, by extolling their own lofty deeds and the glories of their
sires; and perhaps no theme could have been chosen so well calculated to awaken
the enthusiasm of all ranks among a proud, warlike, and as yet unlettered people.
His faney was cramped by none of those fetters imposed by a series of well ascertained
facts; he was left to work his will upon the rude ballads of the vulgar, the wild
traditions of the old patrician clans, and the meagre chronicles of the priests.
Niebuhr conjectures that the beautiful history of the kings in Livy may have been
taken from Ennius. No great space, however, was allotted to the earlier records,
for the contest with Hannibal, which was evidently described with great minuteness,
commenced with the seventh book, the first Punic war being passed over altogether,
as we are told by Cicero (Brut. 19).
II. Fabulae. The fame of Ennius as a dramatist, was little inferior to his reputation
as an epic bard. His pieces, which were very numerous, appear to have been all
translations or adaptations from the Greek, the metres of the originals being
in most cases closely imitated. Fragments have been preserved of the following
tragedies: Achilles, Achilles (Aristarchi), Ajax, Alcmaeon, Alexander, Andromacha,
Andromeda, Antiope, Athamas, Cresphontes, Dulorestes, Erectheus, Eumenides, Hectoris
Lytra, Heuba, Hiona (doubtful), Iphigenia, Medea, Medus, Melanippa or Melanippus
Nemea, Neoptolemus, Phoenix, Telamon, Telephus, Thyestes; and of the following
comedies, belonging to the class of palliatae: Ambracia, Cupiuncula (perhaps Caprunculus),
Celestis (name very doubtful), Paneratiasles, s. Pancratiastae.
For full information as to the sources from whence these were derived,
consult the editions of Hesselius and Bothe, together with the dissertations of
Osann referred to at the end of this article.
III. Satirae. In four (Porphyr. ad Hor. Sal. i. 10), or according to others (Donat. ad Terent. Phorm. ii. 2. 25) in six books, of which less tham twenty-five scattered lines are extant, but from these it is evident that the Satirae were composed in a great variety of metres, and from this circumstance, in all probability, received their appellation.
IV. Scipio. A panegyric upon the public career of his friend and patron, Africanus.
The measure adopted seems to have been the trochaic tetrameter catalectic, although
a line quoted, possibly by mistake, in Macrobius (Sat. vi. 4) is a dactylic hexameter.
The five verses and a half which we possess of this piece do not enable us to
decide whether Valerius Maximus was entitled to term it (viii. 14) rude et impolitum
praceouium (Suidas, s. v. Ennios; Schol. vet. ad Hor. Sat. ii. 1. 16). Some scholars
have supposed that the Scipio was in reality a drama belonging to the class of
the praeteatatae.
V. Asotus. Varro and Festus when examining into the meaning of certain uncommon
words, quote from "Ennius in Asoto", or as Scaliger, very erroneously, insists
"in Sotadico". The subject and nature of this piece are totally unknown. Many
believe it to have been a comedy.
VI. Epicharmus. From a few remnants, amounting altogether to little more tall
twenty lines, we gather that this must have been a philosophieal didactic poem
in which the nature of the gods, the human mind and its phaenomena, the physical
structure of the universe and various kindred topics, were discussed. From the
title we conclude, that it was translated or imitated from Epicharmus the comic
poet, who was a disciple of Pythagoras and is known to have written De Rerum Nalura.
VII. Phagetica, Phagesia, Hedyphagetica. These and many other titles have been
assigned to a work upon edible fishes, which Ennius may perhaps have translated
from Archestratus. Eleven lines in dactylic hexameters have been preserved by
Apuleius exhibiting a mere catalogue of names and localities.
VIII. Epigrammata. Under this head we have two short epitaphs upon Scipio Africanus, and one upon Ennius himself, the whole in elegiac verse, extending collectively to ten lines.
IX. Protreptica. The title seems to indicate that this was a collection of precepts exhorting the reader to the practice of virtue. We cannot, however, tell much about it nor even discover whether it was written in prose or verse, since one word only is known to us, namely pannibus quoted by Charisius.
X. Praecepta. Very probably the same with the preceding. From the remains of three lines in Priscian we conclude that it was composed in iambic trimeters.
XI. Sabinae. Angelo Mai in a note on Cic. De Rep. ii. 8, gives a few words in
prose from "Ennius in Sabinis" without informing us where he found them. Columna
has pointed out that in Macrobius, Sat. vi. 5, we ought to read "Ennius in libro
Satirarum quarto" instead of Sabinarum as it stands in the received text.
XII. Euhemerus, a translation into Latin prose of the hiera anagraphe of Euhemerus.
Several short extracts are contained in Lactantius, and a single word in the De
Re Rustic of Varro.
Censorinus (c. 19) tells us, that according to Ennius the year consisted
of 366 days, and hence it has been conjectured that he was the author of some
astronomical treatise. But an expression of this sort may have been dropped incidentally,
and is not sufficient to justify such a supposition without further evidence.
The first general collection of the fragments of Ennius is that contained in the
"Fragmenta veterum Poetarum Latinorum" by Robert and Henry Stephens, Paris, 1564.
It is exceedingly imperfect and does not include any portion of the Euhemerus,
which being in prose was excluded from the plan.
Much more complete and accurate are "Q. Ennii poetae vetustissimi,
quae supersunt, fragmenta", collected, arranged, and expounded, by Hieronymus
Columna, Neapol. 1590, reprinted with considerable additions, comprising the commentaries
of Delrio and G. J. Voss, by Hesselius, professor of history and eloquence at
Rotterdam, Amstel. 1707. This must be considered as the best edition of the collected
fragments which has yet appeared.
Five years after Columna's edition a new edition of the Annales was
published at Leyden 1595, by Paullus Merula, a Dutch lawyer, who professed not
only to have greatly purified the text, and to have introduced many important
corrections in the arrangement and distribution of the different portions, but
to have made considerable additions to the relics previously discovered. The new
verses were gathered chiefly from a work by L. Calpurnius Piso, a contemporary
of the younger Pliny, bearing the title De Continentia Veterum Poetarum ad Trajanum
Principem, a MS. of which Merula tells us that he examined hastily in the library
of St. Victor at Paris, accompanying this statement with an inexplicable and most
suspicious remark, that he was afraid the volume would be stolen. It is certain
that this codex, if it ever existed, has long since disappeared, and the lines
in question are regarded with well-merited suspicion.
The Annales from the text of Merula were reprinted, but not very accurately,
with some trifling additions, and with the fragments of the Punic war of Naevius,
byErnst Spangenberg, Lips. 1825.
The fragments of the tragedies were carefully collected and examined
by M. A. Delrio in his Syntagma Tragoediae Latinae,Antv. 1593; reprinted at Paris
in 1607 and 1619: they will be found also in the Collectanea veterum Tragicorum
of Scriverius, to which are appended the emendations and notes of G. J. Vossius,
Lug. Bat., 1620. The fragments of both the tragedies and comedies are contained
in Bothe, Poetarum Lutii scenicorum fragmenta, Hlalberst. 1823. The fragments
of the Medea, with a dissertation on the origin and nature of Roman tragedy, were
published by H. Planck, Gotting. 1806, and the fragments of the Medea and of the
Hecuba, compared with the plays of Euripides bearing the same names, are contained
in the Analecta Critica Poesis Romanorum scenicae reliquias illustrantia of Osann,
Berolin.1816.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Dec 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Ennius, a native of Rudiae in Calabria, was serving as a centurion with the army in Sardinia, when Cato arrived there as quaestor. Ennius followed Cato to Rome; acquired the Roman citizenship in 184 B.C.; and made his permanent abode on the Aventine. Here we have to do with his work only so far as it concerned Tragedy. Although his Annals and his Satires were more characteristic products of his genius, he was also the most popular tragic dramatist who had yet appeared; and it was due to him, in the first instance, that Roman Tragedy acquired the popularity which [p. 866] it retained down to the days of Cicero. About twenty-five of his tragedies are known by their titles. Two of these were praetextatae,--one of which, called Sabinae, dealt with the intervention of the Sabine women in the war between Romulus and Tatius; while another, the Ambracia, turned on the capture of the town of Ambracia in the Aetolian war. The other pieces were on Greek subjects,--about one half of them being connected with the Trojan war. His Medea was translated from the play of Euripides, and the opening lines, which are extant, indicate that the version was a tolerably close one. They have a certain rugged majesty which agrees with Horace's description of the style used by Ennius in Tragedy,--In scaenam missos magno cum pondere versus.
This extract is from: Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854) (ed. William Smith, LLD). Cited August 2004 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
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