Collected Fragments of Ennius

by Quintus Ennius

  Hi, your swords!

  Thus Virgil means: — shouting ‘hi’ with a great clamour they rushed at the gates. Others read ‘the enemy is here, hi!’

  524

  Priscianus: ‘Detondeo’... ‘detotondi.’ Ennius in the Annals —

  Bare also stripped he the joyful fields, and he took the cities.

  525

  Servius, on ‘quianam’ in Virgil: ‘Quianam,’ ‘why?’ ‘for what reason?’ The expression is Ennian. An augmenter of Servius adds —

  ‘For why do we cut down the hosts with the sword?

  526–8

  Gellius: At a sitting where a good many were present, it happened that a book chosen from Ennius’ Annals was being read. In that book occurred these lines —

  The lowest breeders at the country’s cost were armed with shield and savage steel; it was they with sentries guarded the city and its walls and mart.

  529

  Gellius: The particle ‘atque’..., should it be doubled, increases and intensifies the action with which it is connected, as we notice in the Annals of Quintus Ennius (unless, in giving this line, my memory is at fault) —

  and then and then approached the walls young warriors of Rome.

  530

  Paulus: ‘Trifax,’ a javelin three ells in length; it is shot from a catapult. Ennius —

  or the party-wall pelted by long spears might crumble away

  531

  Festus: ‘Metonymia’ (change of names) is a trope which comes about when... a lesser thing is given its meaning from a greater one; for example, Ennius has —

  With a great crackle the breeze blew big the Fire-God’s blaze.

  532

  A scholiast, on ‘interea loci’ in Terence: ‘loci’ is redundant;... Ennius —

  The flame there, when it had been tossed about in a fierce whirl,

  Naval affairs.

  533

  Isidorus: ‘Agea’ means the footways, the spaces in a ship along which the boatswain approaches the rowers; on this Ennius has —

  Many wares he put in the gangway; and the long passage was filled full.

  534–5

  Servius (supplemented), on ‘At whose bidding the Earth first gave birth to the neighing horse’ in Virgil:... But some read ‘cui prima frementem | fudit aquam,’ because old writers used the term ‘fremitus’ for the roaring of water. Ennius... —

  and Neptune’s water roared with ships.

  536

  Servius, on ‘and the river of Lethe which floats in front of the peaceful dwellings’ in Virgil: ‘Praenatat,’ flows by. Thus it was Ennius whom he followed, who says —

  and floating billows

  537

  Servius (supplemented): ‘Temere’ means without cause. Ennius —

  ‘No chance is it that you steer sad at heart.

  538

  Isidorus: ‘Clavus’ is that by which a rudder is guided; on this Ennius has —

  ‘so long as I hold tiller straight and steer the ship.

  539

  Isidorus: ‘Tonsilla,’ an iron or wooden hook to which, when it is fixed on the shore, ships’ hawsers are tied; on this Ennius has —

  They transpierced the beach and tied up the hooked mooring-stakes.

  540

  Servius: ‘Explebo numerum.’... ‘Explebo’ means I will diminish, for Ennius says —

  They unfilled themselves from the ships and filled up the land.

  541

  A Scholiast, on Virgil’s ‘And father Portunus himself with mighty hand drove him on his way’: Ennius —

  and with mighty hand the river drove the Romans on.

  542

  Gellius: Furthermore, why does he (Julius Hyginus) not call to task Quintus Ennius also, who in the Annals uses ‘praepes’ not of the wings of Daedalus, but of something quite different —

  Brundisium belted by a beautiful fair haven

  543

  Porphyrio, on ‘speaking two tongues like a man of Canusium’ in Horace: ‘Bilinguis’ is the term used because the Canusians used both languages (Greek and Oscan).... On that account therefore both Ennius and Lucilius wrote —

  a Bruttian speaking two languages

  544

  Festus:... Ennius seems to have jested... and elsewhere —

  Thence... Paros... were wailing.

  545

  Consentius: Poets make metaplasms when they of set purpose leave a wrong spelling uncorrected.... Ennius —

  To him of my forefathers did I raise in my bereave ment a statue at Athens;

  ... by a metaplasm he has taken away (from orbatus?) the letter r.

  546

  Cicero: For if now men who have seen the gate of the Black Sea and the narrows through which passed the ship which was called Argo...(Ennius, Medea)... or those who saw the familiar straits of the Ocean —

  where the greedy wave parts Europe and Libya,

  think they have achieved something, whatever kind of spectacle think we it will be when we shall be allowed to gaze on the whole earth?

  Miscellaneous.

  547–8

  Virgil says:

  Not all of it do I ask to embrace in my verses; not if I were to have a hundred tongues and a hundred mouths and a voice of iron.

  A scholiast on this passage: ‘not if I’ and the rest; the idea is taken from Homer. And thus also writes Ennius —

  Not if I were to have ten mouths with which my tongue could have skill to speak words without number, and my heart and breast were fast bound in iron,

  Homer has:

  The common sort I could not number or name; no, not even if I were to have ten tongues and ten mouths and a voice that none might break, and a heart of bronze within me.

  549

  Augustine: But for my part I think that the remark of Ennius —

  All mortal men long to be themselves acclaimed

  should be partly approved of and partly avoided.

  550

  Servius, on Virgil’s ‘He wakened cruel slaughter that spared none, and let loose all the reins of wrath’; ‘The reins of wrath’... here he used a moderate expression, for Ennius says —

  Let chariots of wrathfulness loose like a flood.

  551

  Macrobius: ‘Eructo’... is derived from a verb ‘erugit.’ Ennius —

  He scorned the springs whence spirts out a rush of water.

  552

  Servius, on a passage in Virgil: —

  They tilted up the brazen bowls;

  they drained at a draught; it is also a half-line of Ennius.

  553

  Gellius: Varro... discusses and distinguishes most acutely the difference between ‘a half’ and ‘halved’; and he says that Quintus Ennius in the Annals was wise when he wrote —

  Just as if a man were to bring a halved beaker of wine,

  The missing part of that beaker should be spoken of as ‘half,’ not ‘halved.’

  554

  Festus (on poison):... whose colour is changed by adulteration, for example Ennius when he says —

  When that proverb ‘by the poison with which it has now but once been imbued’...

  555

  Festus: ‘Solum,’ earth. Ennius... —

  But when she had passed swiftly over the fields of Earth,

  556

  Charisius says: ‘Partum’... Ennius —

  and by then almost of four parts...

  557

  Isidorus: And the parts of the sky are the hollow, the axis, the hinges, the vaults, the poles, and the hemispheres; ‘hollow’ is so called because it ‘holds’ the sky. Whence Ennius —

  hardly to fill with terrors the hollow alone of the sky.

  558

  Isidorus: They say that teams of four ‘run’ on ‘wheels’ because this our universe ‘runs’ out its course through the swiftness of its orbit, or because of the sun, since it ‘wheels’ in a circular revolution; thus Ennius says —

  Then the white wheel laid open t
he sky with its rays.

  Servius, on Virgil’s ‘they have rolled the wheel through a thousand years’:... and further this expression is Ennian.

  559

  Priscianus: ‘Iubar’ also they used to inflect both as a masculine and as a neuter noun. Ennius in the Annals —

  Meanwhile the white brilliance of Hyperion sped away on its course.

  560

  Servius on Virgil’s: ‘And from uplifted nostrils they send out breaths of light’: This is a line of Ennius with a change in the order of words. For that poet says —

  And they pour out a flood of light from nostrils uplifted.

  561

  Servius, on Virgil’s ‘a place teeming with furious Southerlies’: ‘Southerlies.’ This is a figure of speech, namely, the particular for the general, which is frequent in Virgil. He had read in Ennius —

  with raging winds

  562

  Osbern: ‘Hoc momen,’ gen. ‘mominis,’ for ‘momentum.’ Whence Ennius —

  without impulse of yours, o you winds.

  563

  Servius, on Virgil’s ‘A foal of high-bred stud lifts a high pace in the fields and places a pliant leg’: ‘lifts a high pace,’ advances with a kind of prancing. ‘Places a pliant leg’: Ennius on cranes —

  and they creep through the beanfield, placing a pliant leg.

  564

  Charisius: Virgil has ‘aulai medio,’ and Ennius in the Annals has —

  of the fruite-bearing earthe

  565

  Gellius: Ennius too wrote ‘rectos cupressos’ against the accepted gender of the word, in this line —

  pines with nodding heads, and straight cypresses

  Tragedies

  Achilles or Achilles After Aristarchus

  There seems to be no need to believe, as some do (R. 118), that Ennius wrote two plays in which Achilles played the leading part. It is more probable that our authorities cite two different titles of the same play (V. CCI), as they do also in, e.g., the case of Andromache (see p ff.), As in The Ransom of Hector (p ff.), the material for Achilles was drawn from Homer, but here Ennius’ model was Aristarchus of Tegea, who wrote tragedies at Athens in the time of Euripides (Suidas, s.v. Ἀρίσταρχος, Euseb., Chron.). The play deals chiefly if not wholly with the πρεσβεία πρὸς Ἀχιλλέα. (Iliad, IX.) At the head of the text of each Latin item I have put the probable Homeric source of the fragment.

  Place of assembly in the Greek camp.

  1–3

  Agamemnon calls a meeting of the army:

  Plautus: I want to imitate Achilles after Aristarchus; so I will take my beginning from that tragedy —

  Agamemnon

  Up, herald; get me a hearing with the troops.

  Herald

  Oyez! Be still, and turn your minds to me.

  Silence! This is the order of your general of stage-players.

  4–5

  Agamemnon advised a retreat from Troy; then Diomedes sharply rebuked him:

  Nonius: ‘Obvarare,’ to turn crooked, to make corrupt, a term derived from ‘varus’ (awry). Ennius in Achilles —

  For such men cross us by advice to which This gathering of rank already yields.

  Achilles’ tent.

  6

  On Nestor’s advice, Phoenix, Ajax, Ulysses and Eurybates go to appeal to Achilles. From Ulysses’ speech to him?:

  Nonius: ‘Defendere’... to push back... —

  Save you your men and drive you back the foe, While drive them back you can.

  7–9

  From Achilles’ answer:

  Gellius: Furthermore, Quintus Ennius, in that most famous book of his, used the term ‘inimicitia’... —

  Achilles

  Here is the nature which is mine from birth — Friendliness and unfriendliness alike Do I bear plain to see upon my brow.

  10–12

  Achilles was not persuaded; then Phoenix tries his powers. The following comes perhaps from his speech:

  Isidore: ‘Gloria’ is used of virtues, but ‘fama’ is used of vices... —

  Phoenix

  For a coward’s life you will raise up unto yourself the direst bad name, for a brave life, a ready store of glory; when men are evil wishers, they do raise up a bad name; but men who are well-wishers, they raise up glory.

  13

  Perhaps the following are also words of Phoenix:

  Nonius: ‘Proeliant’... —

  In such wise are mortal men justling and tussling one with another.

  14–15

  Achilles would not be moved; Ajax advised Ulysses that they should give up and go; the following words are probably spoken by Ulysses in reply to Ajax:

  Nonius: ‘Regredere,’ to retrace.... —

  Ulysses

  Whither now try you to restep your steps, Our cause yet undecided and unpleaded?

  16–17

  Possibly words of Achilles in final refusal:

  Gellius: Ennius, in the tragedy which is entitled Achilles, puts ‘subices’ (‘underlayers’) for the upper air which ‘under-lies’ the sky —

  By heaven’s god-haunted underlayers on high, Whence springs the storm with savage shriek and swirl,

  18

  from a simile?:

  Cicero: Then suddenly, gentlemen of the jury, great storms gathered, so that Dolabella was not only unable to set out when he wished, but could hardly stay in the town —

  Such mighty billows were tossed and tossed again.

  A scholiast on this passage: He made use of a half-line of Ennius, taken from the tragedy which is entitled Achilles.

  19

  from a battle-scene:

  Festus: When Ennius, in Achilles after Aristarchus, says — Stood by with bronze held forward he means ‘with his shield spread in front of himself.’

  Ajax

  The four extant lines from Ennius’ Ajax do not allow us to say with certainty whether his model was Sophocles’ Αἴας or not. It is probable that the action covered the events from the rivalry of Ajax and Ulysses over the arms of Achilles to the death of Ajax by his own hand.

  20

  from the prologue?:

  Nonius: ‘Statim,’ when the first syllable is pronounced long, as derived from ‘stare’ means perseveringly and uniformly.... Ennius in Ajax —

  who warred with the Achaeans steadfastly.

  21

  Varro: —

  Ajax

  Some glow — the star-light? — in the heavens I see

  By ‘iubar’ is meant the star (Venus) which is called ‘Light-bringer.’ Its rise indicates that the end of the night is near.

  22

  Outburst of Ajax in which he sneers at the spoils won by Ulysses?:

  Festus: A nymph named Salmacis, a daughter of Sky and Earth, is said to be the origin of the name ‘Salmacis’ given to the water of a spring at Halicarnassus; he who had drunk this water became unmanned in the vice of lewdness. Ennius —

  Spoils of Salmacis, gained without sweat and spilt blood.

  23

  Teucer is about to carry away self-slain Ajax:

  Festus: Some have said that ‘tullii’ are jets, others that they are streams, others that they are strong spurts of blood gushing in an arc, like the spurts in the waters of the Anio at Tibur... —

  Teucer?

  with gush of warm blood fly the spouting jets.

  Alcmaeon

  All the fragments of this play are words from the latter part of it spoken by Alcmaeon; they, together with Cic, Ac, Pr., II, 28, 29, ‘cum virginis fidem implorat’ (see ), make it fairly certain that the action corresponded with the plot given by Hyginus, 73, which we can expand a little from Apollodorus ‘Library.’ Passages from both sources are included here. In at least one other case (Alexander, see p ff.) Hyginus can be shown to have gone to Ennius for his plot. The original may have been Theodectes’ Ἀλκμαίων, but more probably it was Euripides’ Ἀλκμαίων διὰ Ψωφῖδος (not his Ἀ
. διὰ Κορίνθου).

  Hyginus: Amphiaraus the seer, son of Oecleus and Hypermnestra, a daughter of Thestius, because he knew that if he joined in the attack on Thebes he was destined not to return thence, went accordingly into hiding, his accomplice being his wife, Eriphyle, a daughter of Talaus. But Adrastus, that he might track him down, offered a golden necklace set with gems as a present to Eriphyle, who was his sister; and she, eager for the gift, betrayed her husband. Amphiaraus bade his son Alcmaeon exact retribution from his mother after his father’s death. After the latter was engulfed by the earth at Thebes, Alcmaeon, mindful of his father’s bidding, slew Eriphyle his mother. Afterwards the Furies harassed him.