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It was a queer set-out, this job that Ennius attempted, of making a real Roman poem, an epic of Roman history. Between old Latin and Greek there was the same kind of difference as between French and English: one fundamental in the rhythm of the languages. I am giving my own explanation of a very puzzling problem; and needless to say, it may be wrong.
Not unaffected by this fashion of the day, but turning from it to older and nobler models Homer and Empedocles in Greek, Ennius in Latin Lucretius conceived the imposing scheme of a didactic poem dealing with the whole field of life and nature as interpreted by the Epicurean philosophy. He lived to carry out his work almost to completion.
ET TAMEN: the sense is incompletely expressed, in full it is 'and yet there is no need for me to refer to Appius' speech as given by Ennius, since the speech itself is in existence. Exactly similar ellipses are found with et tamen in Fin 1, 11 and 15; 2, §§ 15, 21, 64 and 85, Att. 7, 3, 10, Lucretius 5, 1177. In Munro's note on the last passage a collection of examples will be found.
XXXI. Should I permit Homer, and Ennius, and the rest of the poets, and especially the tragic poets, to forbear displaying the same vehemence on every occasion, and constantly to change their language, and sometimes even to come near to the ordinary language of daily conversation; and never myself descend from that fierce style of vehement expression? But why do I cite poets of godlike genius?
To old age Appius Claudius had the additional disadvantage of being blind; yet it was he who, when the Senate was inclining towards a peace with Pyrrhus and was for making a treaty, did not hesitate to say what Ennius has embalmed in the verses: Whither have swerved the souls so firm of yore? Is sense grown senseless? Can feet stand no more? And so on in a tone of the most passionate vehemence.
He attacked Accius for his unauthorised innovations in spelling, Pacuvius and Ennius for want of a sustained level of dignity. His satire seems to have ranged over the whole field of life, so far as it was known to him; and though his learning was in no department deep, it was sound so far as it went, and was guided by natural good taste.
II. The first point, then, says Lucilius, I think needs no discourse to prove it; for what can be so plain and evident, when we behold the heavens and contemplate the celestial bodies, as the existence of some supreme, divine intelligence, by which all these things are governed? Were it otherwise, Ennius would not, with a universal approbation, have said,
Many apparent anomalies in versification are due to the influence of accent over-riding quantity, and many again to the preservation of the original quantity in spite of the accent. Ennius harmonised with great skill the claims of both, doing little more violence to the natural accent in his elaborate system of quantity than was done by the Saturnian and comic poets with their fluctuating usage.
At contra, hunc ignem Veneris, si non Venus ipsa, Nulla est quae possit vis alia opprimare." We have quoted these pieces, not from their intrinsic merit, for they have little or none, but to show the painful process by which Latin versification was elaborated. All these must be referred to a date at least sixty years after Ennius, and yet the rhythm is scarcely at all improved.
Formerly a newly-married husband was silent and bashful; now the wife surrenders herself to the first coachman that comes. Formerly the blessing of children was woman's pride; now if her husband desires for himseli children, she replies: Knowest thou not what Ennius says? "'-Ter sub armis malim vitam cernere Quam semel modo parere .
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