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ENNIUS' ANN ALES
I. THE SCOPE AND CONTENTS OF THE 'ANNALES'
Ennius went further than Naevius in Hellenizing the form of Latin epic,
shaping it in books which were to have aesthetic unity and casting it in Homer's
hexameter. (The Bellum Pcem'cum was divided into seven books not by its
author Naevius but by Octavius Lampadio, a contemporary of Accius, whose
sense of decorum on this point was learnt from Hellenistic poets in general and
Ennius in particular (Suet. Gramm. 2).) The scale of the books was between
about 1,000 and 1,700 lines each; the fragments amount to barely half such a
book, and represent less than a twentieth of a poem which in its final form had
eighteen books. Most fragments are assigned to their books, and grammarians
and others allude to the contents of some: hence, and also because the subject
matter was historical, narrated chronologically (though at very varying pace),
attempts at reconstruction are saved from utter futility. Ennius appears to have
organized his poem as five triads of books, each covering a coherent period of
Rome's story. 1 These fifteen books spanned almost or exactly one thousand
years in the contemporary reckoning (1184/3 B - c - ~~ 187/184 B.C.), and this may
be relevant to the architecture of the poem; see pp. 63—4. A sixth triad, which
circulated separately, was added by Ennius in the last years of his life (d. 169 B.C.).
The first triad covered the mythical era from the fall of Troy to the end of the
regal period. As is usual with fragmentary authors, the first book is the best
represented. It began with an invocation of the Muses. Ennius narrated a dream,
formally recalling famous prooemia of Hesiod (Theogony) and Callimachus
(Aetid),m. which he told how Homer's spirit appeared and revealed that he, Homer,
was reincarnated in Ennius. This stupendous claim asserted the unique importance
of Ennius' theme, but it is not clear how literally Ennius meant it. Allegory,
though not yet literary allusion, was familiar to the public through tragedy; at
the same time, Ennius himself was seriously interested in sub-Platonic astral
mysticism and Pythagorean ideas of reincarnation, beliefs which were enjoying
some fashion at Rome in the 180s and 170s B.C. 2 The narrative began with the
1
See F. Skutsch, RE v 1610, O. Skutsch (1968) 28 n. 4, Jocelyn (1971)
2
See BoyancS (1955) 171—92.
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