The Roman Poets of the Republic Part 10

Vert.i.tur interea caelum c.u.m ingentibu' signis;

and again in the following--

Indu foro lato sanctoque senatu.

Augusto augurio postquam incluta condita Roma est.

Omnibu' cura viris uter esset induperator,

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

Urbes magnas atque _imperiosas_.

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 pa.s.sage from one of his tragedies, the Andromache, may be quoted as ill.u.s.trative 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:--

O pater, O patria, O Priami domus, Saeptum altisono cardine templum!

Vidi ego te, astante ope barbarica, Tectis caelatis, lacuatis, Auro ebore instructum regifice![58]

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 Ca.s.sandra, 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 fort.i.tude 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 hards.h.i.+ps of the war with Pyrrhus--

Ast animo superant atque aspera prima Volnera belli dispernunt[59];

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

Ego c.u.m genui tum morituros scivi, et ei rei sustuli: Praeterea ad Trojam c.u.m misi ob defendendam Graeciam, Scibam me in mortiferum bellum, non in epulas mittere[60].

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 pa.s.sages as the following:--

Eo ego ingenio natus sum, Aeque inimicitiam atque amicitiam in frontem promptam gero[61].

There is no subtlety nor rhetorical point in the expression of his serious convictions. The very style of the tragedies, which, as Cicero says[62], '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[63], though ridiculed by the purism of Seneca:--

Is dictus 'st ollis popularibus olim Qui tum vivebant homines, atque aevum agitabant, Flos delibatus populi suadaeque medulla[64].

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[65]: the fort.i.tude that, in the long run, wins success, and saves the State[66], 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[67]; the sagacity which enables men to understand their circ.u.mstances, and to turn them to the best account[68].

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

Otioso in otio animus nescit quid velit; Hic itidem est: enim neque domi nunc nos neque militiae sumus, Imus huc, illuc hinc, c.u.m illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet; Incerte errat animus: praeter propter vitam vivitur[69],--

a fragment which might be compared with certain pa.s.sages 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 pa.s.sage where Lucretius has a.s.sumed something of the caustic tone of Roman satire--

Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille Esse domi quem pertaesum 'st subitoque revert.i.t, Quippe domi nihilo melius qui sentiat esse, etc.[70]

While Ennius, like Lucretius, gives little indication of humour, yet the folly and superst.i.tion 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

Eremites and friars White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery.

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--

Satin' vates verant aetate in agenda?

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

Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat: caeli scrutantur plagas.

And the following pa.s.sage may be quoted as applicable to charlatans of every kind, in every age and country--

Sed superst.i.tiosi vates, impudentesque arioli, Aut inertes aut insani, aut quibus egestas imperat, Qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam, Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab eis drachmam ipsi petunt[71].

There are pa.s.sages 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 att.i.tude towards the schools of philosophy--

Philosophari est mihi necesse, at paucis: nam omnino haut placet.

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 rect.i.tude 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 pa.s.sages, 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 Ennia.n.u.s'). The t.i.tle of Ennianista was a.s.sumed by a public reader of the Annals in the time of Hadrian, when there was a strong revival of admiration for the older literature of Rome[72]. 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[73],' 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 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 feeling which make the epic poem of Virgil the truest representation of Roman sentiment which has come down to modern times. By Ovid he is characterised as--

Ennius, ingenio maximus, arte rudis.

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--

Ennius et sapiens et fortis et alter Homerus, Ut critici dic.u.n.t, leviter curare videtur Quo promissa cadant et somnia Pythagorea[74],

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 n.o.bilior 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.

[Footnote 1: Parco admodum sumptu contentus et unius ancillae ministerio.]

[Footnote 2: xvii. 17.]

[Footnote 3: The line--

Ad patrios montes et ad incunabula nostra,

which is quoted by Cicero in a letter to Atticus, and which Vahlen attributed to Ennius, is now generally a.s.signed to Cicero himself.]

[Footnote 4: Livy x.x.xviii. 17.]

[Footnote 5: 'When the Carthaginians were coming from all sides to the conflict, and all things, beneath high heaven, confounded by the hurry and tumult of war, shook with alarm: and men were in doubt to which of the two the empire of the whole world, by land and sea, should fall.'--Lucret. iii.