ENNIUS, Quintus, Latin poet: b. Rudia, near Brundusium, 239 B.C. ; d. 169 B.c. When he was 38 Cato the Censor brought him to Rome, where he soon gained the friendship of the most distinguished men and instructed the young men of rank in Greek. With an extensive knowledge of the Greek language and literature he united a thorough acquaintance with the Oscan and Latin tongues and exerted great in fluence on the last. He wrote an epic poem in hexameters, describing the history of Rome from the arrival of lEneas in Italy to the poet's own times; tragedies and comedies, satires, epigrams, precepts, but nothing now remains except fragments given as quota tions in other ancient authors, many of them mere citations by grammarians and other insig nificant extracts. A few larger fragments have been preserved, which give a favorable im pression of his genius. His success in his own day was great. His poems were for a long period read aloud to admiring multitudes, and they were often quoted and referred to by the great writers of antiquity. Fragments of his works have been edited by Muller, L. (Saint Petersburg 1885) ; Ribbeck, 0., in
Romanorum Poesis Fragmenta' (Leipzig 1897) ; and Vahlen, J., (Leipzig 1854 and 1903). Con sult Duckett, E. S., (Studies in Ennius' (in Bryn Mawr College Monographs, Monograph Series, Vol. XVIII, Bryn Mawr 1915) ; Knapp, C., 'Vahlen's Ennius' (in American Journal of Philology, Vol. XXXII, p. 1, Baltimore 1911) ; Muller, L.,
Dichter Ennius' (in Samm lungen Wissentschaftlicher Vortraege, edited by R. Virchow, N. F. Ser. VIII, Heft 185, Ham burg 1893) ; (Die Entstehung der Romischen Kunstdichtung' (ib. N. F. Ser. IV, Heft 92, Hamburg 1889) ; Postgate, J. P.,