History of Roman Literature from its Earliest Period to the Augustan Volume I Part 4

But although it be quite clear that all the plays of Ennius were translated, or closely imitated, from the Greek, there is occasionally some difficulty in fixing on the drama which was followed, and also in ascertaining whether there be any original pa.s.sage whatever in the Latin imitation. This difficulty arises from the practice adopted by the Greek dramatists, of new modelling their tragedies. Euripides, in particular, sometimes altered his plays after their first representation, in order to accommodate them to the circ.u.mstances of the times, and to obviate the sarcastic criticisms of Aristophanes, who had frequently exposed whole scenes to ridicule. With such views, considerable changes were made on _Iphigenia in Aulis_, the _Hippolytus_, and _Medea_. Euripides is the author from whom Ennius has chiefly borrowed the fables of his tragedies; and when Sophocles and Euripides have treated the same subject, the latter poet has been uniformly preferred. Not one of the dramas of Ennius has been imitated from aeschylus. The reason of this is sufficiently obvious: The plays of aeschylus have little involution of plot, and are rather what we should now term dramatic sketches, than tragedies. The plots of Sophocles are more complex than those of aeschylus; but the tragedies of Euripides are the most involved of all. Now, it may be presumed, that a tragedy crowded with action, and filled with the bustle of a complicated fable, was best adapted to the taste of the Romans, because we _know_ that this was their taste in comedy. Plautus combined two Greek comedies to form one Latin; and the representation of the Hecyra of Terence, the only Latin play formed on the simple Greek model, was repeatedly abandoned by the people before it was concluded, for the sake of amus.e.m.e.nts of more tumult and excitement.

Of _Achilles_, which, in alphabetical order, is the first of the plays of Ennius, there are just extant seven lines, which have been preserved by Nonius and Festus; and from such remains it is impossible to know what part of the life or actions of the Grecian hero Ennius had selected as the subject of his plot. There were many Greek tragedies on the story of Achilles, of which, one by Aristarchus of Tegea, was the most celebrated, and is supposed to have been that from which Ennius copied.

_Ajax_. Sophocles was author of two tragedies founded on the events of the life of Ajax;-_Ajax Flagellifer_, and _Ajax Locrensis_. The first turns on the phrensy with which the Grecian hero was seized, on being refused the arms of Achilles, and it may be conjectured, from a single fragment, apparently at the very close of the tragedy by Ennius, and which describes the attendants raising the body of Ajax, streaming with blood, that this was the piece translated by the Roman poet.

_Alcmaeon_. This play, of which the fable closely resembles the story of Orestes, has by some been attributed to the Latin poet Quintus Catulus.

The transports of Alcmaeon had been frequently exhibited on the Greek stage(164). The drama of Ennius was taken from a tragedy of Euripides, which is now lost, but its subject is well known from the Thebaid of Statius. The soothsayer Amphiaraus, foreseeing that he would perish at the siege of Thebes, concealed himself from the crimps of those days; but his wife, Eryphile, who alone knew the place of his retreat, being bribed by the gift of a mantle and necklace, revealed the secret to one of the "Seven before Thebes," who compelled him to share in the expedition.

Before death, the prophet enjoined his son, Alcmaeon, to avenge him on his faithless wife. The youth, in compliance with this pious command, slew his mother, and was afterwards tormented by the Furies, who would only be appeased by a gift of the whole _paraphernalia_ of Eryphile, which were accordingly hung up in their temple. As soon as their persecution ceased, he married the fair Calirrhoe, daughter of Achelous, and precipitately judging that the consecrated necklace would be better bestowed on his beautiful bride than on the beldame by whom he had so long been haunted, he contrived, on false pretences, to purloin it from the place where it was deposited; but the Furies were not to be so choused out of their perquisites, and in consequence of his rash preference, Alcmaeon was compelled to suffer a renewed phrensy, and to undergo a fresh course of expiatory ceremonies(165).

_Alexander_ (_Paris_). The plot of this play hinges on the destruction of Troy. The pa.s.sages which remain are a heavenly admonition to Priam on the crimes of his son, a lamentation for the death of Hector, and a prediction of Ca.s.sandra concerning the wooden horse. Planck, in his recent edition of the _Medea_ of Ennius, while he does not deny that our poet may have written a tragedy with the t.i.tle of _Alexander_, is of opinion that the fragments quoted as from this play in the editions of Ennius belong properly to his _Alexandra_ (_Ca.s.sandra_), to which subject they are perfectly applicable. This German critic has also collected a good many fragments belonging to the _Ca.s.sandra_, which had been omitted in Columna and Merula's editions of Ennius. The longest of these pa.s.sages, delivered by Ca.s.sandra in the style of a prophecy, seems to refer to events previous to the Trojan war-the judgment of Paris, and arrival of Helen from Sparta.

_Andromache_. It is uncertain from what Greek writer this tragedy has been translated. It seems to be founded on the lamentable story of Andromache, who fell, with other Trojan captives, to the share of Neoptolemus, and saw her only son, Astyanax, torn from her embraces, to be precipitated from the summit of a tower, in compliance with the injunctions of an oracle.

Among the fragments of this play, we possess one of the longest pa.s.sages extant of the works of Ennius, containing a pathetic lamentation of Andromache for the fall and conflagration of Troy, with a comparison between its smoking ruins and former splendour. This pa.s.sage Cicero styles, "Praeclarum Carmen!"-"Est enim," he adds, "et rebus, et verbis, et modis lugubre(166)."

-- "Quid petam Praesidi aut exsequar? quo nunc aut exilio aut fuga freta sim?

Arce et urbe orba sum; quo accidam? quo applicem?

Cui nec arae patriae domi stant; fractae et disjectae jacent, Fana flamma deflagrata; tosti alti stant parietes.

O Pater, O Patria, O Priami domus; Septum altisono cardine templum: Vidi ego te, adstante ope barbarica, Tectis caelatis, laqueatis, Auro, ebore instructum regifice.

Haec omnia vidi inflammari, Priamo vi vitam evitari, Jovis aram sanguine turpari(167)."

_Andromache Molottus_ is translated from the _Andromache_ of Euripides, and is so called from Molottus, the son of Neoptolemus and Andromache.

_Andromeda_. Livius Andronicus had formerly written a Latin play on the well-known story of Perseus and Andromeda, which was translated from Sophocles. The play of Ennius, however, on the same subject, was a version of a tragedy of Euripides, now chiefly known from the ridicule cast on it in the fifth act of Aristophanes' _Feasts of Ceres_. That Ennius' drama was translated from Euripides, is sufficiently manifest, from a comparison of its fragments with the pa.s.sages of the Greek Andromeda, preserved by Stobaeus.

_Athamas_. There is only one short fragment of this play now extant.

_Cresphontes_. Merope, believing that her son Cresphontes had been slain by a person who was brought before her, discovers, when about to avenge on him the death of her child, that she whom she had mistaken for the murderer is Cresphontes himself.

_Dulorestes_. Of this play there is only one line remaining, and of course it is almost impossible to ascertain from what Greek original it was borrowed. Even this single verse has by several critics been supposed to be falsely attributed to Ennius, and to belong, in fact, to the Dulorestes of Pacuvius(168).

_Erectheus_. There is just enough of this play extant to have satisfied Columna, one of the editors of Ennius, that it was taken from a tragedy of the same name by Euripides. As told by Hyginus, the fable concerning Erectheus, King of Attica, was, that he had four daughters, who all pledged themselves not to survive the death of any one of their number.

Eumolpus, son of Neptune, being slain at the siege of Athens, his father required that one of the daughters of Erectheus should be sacrificed to him in compensation. This having been accomplished, her sisters slew themselves as a matter of course, and Erectheus was soon afterwards struck by Jupiter with thunder, at the solicitation of Neptune. The longest pa.s.sage preserved from this tragedy is the speech of Colophonia, when about to be sacrificed to Neptune by her father.

_Eumenides_. This play, translated from aeschylus, exhibited the phrensy of Orestes, and his final absolution from the vengeance of the Furies.

_Hectoris Lytris vel l.u.s.tra_, so called from ???, _solvo_, turned on the redemption from Achilles by Priam, of the body of Hector. It appears, however, from the fragments, that the combat of Hector, and the brutal treatment of his corpse by Achilles, had been represented or related in the early scenes of the piece.

_Hecuba_. This is a free translation from the Greek _Hecuba_, perhaps the most tragic of all the dramas of Euripides. From the work of Ennius, there is still extant a speech by the shade of Polydorus, announcing in great form his arrival from Acheron. This soliloquy, which is a good deal expanded from the original Greek, always produced a great sensation in the Roman theatre, and is styled by Cicero, _Grande Carmen_(169).-

"Adsum, atque advenio Acherunte, vix via alta, atque ardua, Per speluncas saxeis structas aspereis pendentibus Maxumeis; ubi rigida constat et cra.s.sa caligo inferum; Unde animae excitantur obscura umbra, aperto ostio Alti Acheruntis, falso sanguine imagines mortuorum(170)."

A speech of Hecuba, on seeing the dead body of Polydorus, and in which she reproaches the Greeks as having no punishment for the murder of a parent or a guest, seems to have been added by Ennius himself, at least it is not in the Greek original of Euripides. On the whole, indeed, the _Hecuba_ of Ennius appears, so far as we can judge from the fragments, to be the least servile of his imitations. In Columna's edition of Ennius, an opportunity is afforded by corresponding quotations from the Greek _Hecuba_, of comparing the manner in which the Latin poet has varied, amplified, or compressed the thoughts of his original. In Euripides, Hecuba, while persuading Ulysses to intercede for Polixena, says-

"?? d' a???a, ?a? ?a??? ?????, t? s??

?e?se?. ????? ?a? ?? t' ad?????t?? ???, ?a? '? t?? d?????t?? a?t??, ?? ta?t?? s???e?."

Ennius imitates this as follows:

"Haec tu, etsi perverse dices, facile Achivos flexeris; Namque opulenti c.u.m loquuntur pariter atque ign.o.biles, Eadem dicta, eademque oratio aequa non aeque valent."

This has been copied by Plautus, and from him by Moliere in his _Amphitrion_-

"Tous les discours sont des sottises Partant d'un homme sans eclat; Ce seroient paroles exquisses, Si c'etoit un grand qui parlat."

The last link in this chain of imitation, is Pope's well-known lines-

"What woful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonnetteer or me!

But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens, how the style refines!"

_Iliona sive Polydorus_.-Priam, during the siege of Troy, had entrusted his son Polydorus to the care of Polymnestor, King of Thrace, who was married to Iliona, daughter of Priam, and slew his guest, in order to possess himself of the treasure which had been sent along with him. The only pa.s.sage of the play which remains, is one in which the shade of Polydorus calls on Hecuba to arise and bury her murdered son.

_Iphigenia_.-Ennius, as already mentioned, appears invariably to have translated from Euripides, in preference to Sophocles, when the same subject had been treated by both these poets. Sophocles had written a tragedy on the topic of the well-known _Iphigenia in Aulis_ of Euripides; but it is the latter piece which has been adopted by the Roman poet.

Boeckius has shown, in a learned dissertation, that Euripides wrote two _Iphigenias in Aulis_(171). From the first, which has perished, Aristophanes parodied the verses introduced in his _Frogs_; and it was on this work that Ennius formed his Latin _Iphigenia_. The _Iphigenia_ now extant, and published in the editions of Euripides, is a _recension_ of the original drama, which was undertaken on account of the ridicule thrown on it by Aristophanes, and was not acted till after the death of its author. Boeckius, indeed, thinks, that it was written by the younger Euripides, the nephew of the more celebrated dramatist; hence some of the lines of Ennius, which, on comparison with the _Iphigenia_ now extant, appear to us original, were probably translated from the first written _Iphigenia_. Such, perhaps, are the jingling verses concerning the disadvantages of idleness, which are supposed, not very naturally, to be sung while weather-bound in Aulis, by the Greek soldiers, who form the chorus of this tragedy instead of the women of Chalcis in the play of Euripides:-

"Otio qui nescit uti, plus negoti habet, Quam quum est negotium in negotio; Nam cui quod agat inst.i.tutum est, in illo negotio Id agit; studet ibi, mentem atque animum delectat suum.

Otioso in otio animus nescit quid sibi velit.

Hoc idem est; neque domi nunc nos, nec militiae sumus: Imus huc, hinc illuc; quum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet.

Incerte errat animus-(172)."

_Medea_.-This play is imitated from the _Medea_ of Euripides. Since the time of Paulus Manutius(173), an idea has prevailed that Ennius was the author of two plays on the subject of Medea-one ent.i.tled _Medea_, and the other _Medea Exsul_, both imitated from Greek originals of Euripides. This opinion was formed in consequence of there being several pa.s.sages of the _Medea_ of Ennius, to which corresponding pa.s.sages cannot be found in the _Medea_ of Euripides, now extant; and it was confirmed by the grammarians sometimes quoting the play by the t.i.tle _Medea_, and at others by that of _Medea Exsul_. Planck, however, in his recent edition of the fragments of the Latin tragedy, conjectures that there was only one play, and that this play was ent.i.tled by Ennius the _Medea Exsul_, which name was appropriate to the subject; but that when quoted by the critics and old grammarians, it was sometimes cited, as was natural, by its full t.i.tle, at others simply _Medea_. The lines in the Latin play, to which parallel pa.s.sages cannot be found in Euripides, he believes to be of Ennius' own invention.

Osannus thinks, that neither the opinion of Manutius, nor of Planck, is quite accurate. He believes that Euripides wrote a _Medea_, which he afterwards revised and altered, in order to obviate the satiric criticisms of Aristophanes. The Greek _Medea_, which we now have, he supposes to be compounded of the original copy and the recension,-the ancient grammarians having interpolated the ma.n.u.scripts. Ennius, he maintains, employed the original tragedy; and hence in the Latin play, we now find translations of lines which were omitted both in the recension and in the compound tragedy, which is at present extant(174).

The _Medea_ of Ennius was a popular drama at Rome, and was considered one of the best productions of its author. Cicero asks, if there be any one such a foe to the Roman name, as to reject or despise the _Medea_ of Ennius. From the romantic interest of the subject, Medea was the heroine of not less than four epic poems; and no fable, of Greek antiquity, was more frequently dramatized by the Latin poets. Attius, Varro, Ovid, and Seneca, successively imitated the tragedy of Ennius, and improved on their model.

_Phnix_.-There were two persons of this name in mythological story. One the son of Agenor, and brother of Cadmus, who gave name to Phnicia; the other the preceptor of Achilles, who accompanied that hero to the Trojan war. The only reason for supposing that the tragedy of Ennius related to this latter person is, that a play founded on some part of his life was written by Euripides, from whom the Roman poet has borrowed so much.

_Telamon_.-This play, of which no Greek original is known, seems to have been devoted to a representation of the misfortunes of Telamon, particularly the concluding period of his life, in which he heard of the death of his eldest son Ajax, and the exile of his second son Teucer. To judge from the fragments which remain, it must have been by far the finest drama of Ennius. He thus happily versifies the celebrated sentiment of Anaxagoras, and puts it into the mouth of Telamon, when he hears of the death of his son-

"Ego quom genui, tum moriturum scivi, et ei rei sustuli; Praeterea ad Trojam quom misi ad defendendam Graeciam, Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere(175)."

Ennius being an inhabitant of _Magna Graecia_, probably held the Tuscan soothsayers and diviners in great contempt. There is a long pa.s.sage cited by the grammarians as from this tragedy, (but which, I think, must rather have belonged to his satires,) directed against that learned body, and calculated to give them considerable offence-

"Non habeo denique nauci Marsum augurem, Non vicanos haruspices, non de circo astrologos, Non Isiacos conjectores, non interpretes somnium: Non enim sunt ii, aut scientia, aut arte divinei; Sed superst.i.tiosi vates, impudentesque hariolei, Aut inertes, aut insanei, aut quibus egestas imperat: Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam; Quibus divitias pollicentur ab iis drachmam ipsei petunt: De his divitiis sibi deducant drachmam; reddant caetera(176)."

There is a good deal of wit and archness in the two concluding lines, and the whole breathes a spirit of free-thinking, such as one might expect from the translator of Euhemerus. In another pa.s.sage, indeed, but which, I presume, was attributed to an impious character, or one writhing under the stroke of recent calamity, it is roundly declared that the G.o.ds take no concern in human affairs, for if they did, the good would prosper, and the wicked suffer, whereas it is quite the contrary:

"Ego Deum genus esse semper dixi, et dicam c.l.i.tum; Sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus; Nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis; quod nunc abest(177)."

_Telephus_ is probably taken from a lost play of Euripides, ridiculed by Aristophanes in his _Acharnenses_, from a scene of which it would seem that Telephus had appeared on the stage in tattered garments. The pa.s.sages of the Latin play which remain, exhibit Telephus as an exile from his kingdom, wandering about in ragged habiliments. The lines of Horace, in his Art of Poetry, (a work which is devoted to the subject of the Roman drama,) are probably in allusion to this tragedy:

"Telephus et Peleus, c.u.m pauper et exsul, uterque Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba."

_Thyestes_.-The loose and familiar numbers in which the tragedy of Telephus was written, were by no means suitable to the atrocious subject of the Supper of Thyestes. Ennius accordingly has been censured by Cicero, in a pa.s.sage of his _Orator_, for employing them in this drama.-"Similia sunt quaedam apud nostros; velut illa in Thyeste,

'Quemnam te esse dicam! qui tarda in senectute,'

Et quae sequuntur: quae, nisi c.u.m tibicen accesserit, orationi sunt solutae simillima." There can therefore be little doubt that the pa.s.sage in Horace's Art of Poetry, in which a tragedy on the subject of Thyestes is blamed as flat and prosaic, and hardly rising above the level of ordinary conversation in comedy, alluded to the work of Ennius-