E'NNIUS, QUINTUS, the old epic poet of Rome, was born at Rudim, now Ruge, in Calabria, in the year B.c. 239, two years after the termination of the first Punic war. He was a Greek by birth, and is one among many instances how much Roman literature was indebted even directly to foreign talent. History doea not inform us what his original Greek name was, for that of Ennins is evidently of Latin form, and was probably adopted by him when he was admitted to the privilegea of a Roman citizen. Of his early life little is peel tively known. He entered the military service of the Romans, and in the year 204 was serving as a centurion in the island of Sardinia, where his abilities attracted the notice of Cato, who was then acting as qumstor under the first Scipio Africanus. When Cato left tho Wand, the poet accompanied him to Rome, and fixed his residence on the Aventine Hill. The introduction of Cato, his military character, and his poetical abilities, won for him the friendship and intimacy of the first men of Rome, and he was largely instrumental in introducing letters among a nobility who had hitherto gloried as much in their ignorance as their courage. Cato himself learned Greek from him. Scipio Africanus found in him a companion in peace and the herald of his glories in war. Scipio Nasica, the son of Africanus, delighted in his society; and M. Fulvius Nobilior, the consul, acs. 189, himself possessing a high literary character, prevailed on the soldier-poet to accompany him in the war against the iEtolians. It was to the son of this Folvius that he was indebted for his admission to the citizen ship of Rome. His great social qualities unfortunately led him into intemperance, for which he paid the penalty in severs sufferings from gout. Still a hardy constitution enabled him to complete his seventieth year, and to the very last to devote himself to his favourite muses. 110 died in the year B.C. 169, and was buried in the Cornelian sepulchre, one mile out of Rome, on the Appian road, where his statue still appeared with those of Publics and Lucius Scipio, even iu the ago of Livy, a lasting monument of his intimacy with those great men. Ho lived, as we have already said, in the splendid dawn
of Roman literature. Nmviva, the first poet of Rome, and Livius Audrcruicus, were his predecessors by not many years. The tragic poet Pactivius was his sister's son. Plautus was his contemporary, and the comic writer Ccecilius his companion in arms. The writings of Ennius were numerous and various. His great work called, some what unpoetically, by the name of Annals,' was an historical epic in eighteen books, written in hexameter verse, a form of metre which is said to have been the first to introduce into Roman literature. Tills work traced the history of Rome from the mythical age of iEneas down to his own time. His labours in tragedy were extensive. Ile gave the Romans a translation, but evidently a very free one, of the Eumenides of .tEschylus,' the 'Medea," 1phigenia in Aulis,' and 'Hecuba of Euripides,' the 'Ajax Flagellifer of Sophoclee? besides as many as nineteen from ether Greek poets. Ile also wrote comedies. His other works were Phagetica,' a poem on gastronomy, especially on the merits of fishes; an epic, or panegyric, entitled 'Scipio ; ' a metrical translation from a philosophic work of Eplcharmus, partly in dactylic hexameters, partly in trochaic tetrameters; poems entitled 'Asetna," Sotadicus," Protreptica; and 'Praecepta ; ' also satires, epigrams, and acrostics; and a prose translation of the sacred history of Eumerus. Of all these works there is only an unconnected masa of fragments collected from quotations in Cicerd and other writers. The work entitled Annals' was for a long time the national epics of Roman literature, and Virgil has not scrupled to borrow freely from it. The best edition of Ennius is that by Hesselius, 4to, Amsterdam, 1707.