Ennius was born at
Rudiae in
Salento, a town where the
Greek, Oscan and
Latin languages were in contact with one another. (But see also a remark under
Messapian language.)
Ennius' more famous works include: the
Epicharmus, the
Euhemerus, the
Hedyphagetica,
Saturae, and the
Annals (
Annales in Latin).
The
Epicharmus presented an account of the gods and the physical operations of the
universe. In it, the poet dreamed he had been transported after
death to some place of heavenly
enlightenment.
The
Euhemerus presented a
theological doctrine of a vastly different type in a mock-simple prose style modelled on the Greek of
Euhemerus of Messene and several other theological writers. According to this doctrine, the gods of
Olympus were not supernatural powers still actively intervening in the affairs of
men, but great
generals, statesmen and
inventors of olden times commemorated after death in extraordinary ways.
The
Hedyphagetica took much of its substance from the
gastronomical epic of
Archestratus of Gela, a work commonly associated with
Epicureanism. The eleven extant
hexameters have prosodical features avoided in the more serious
Annales.
The remains of six books of
Saturae show a considerable variety of
metres. There are signs that Ennius varied the metre sometimes even within a composition. A frequent theme was the social life of Ennius himself and his upper-class Roman friends and their intellectual conversation.
The
Annals was an
epic poem in fifteen books, later expanded to eighteen, covering Roman history from the fall of
Troy in
1184 BC down to the censorship of Cato the Elder in
184 BC. It was the first Latin poem to adopt the
dactylic hexameter metre used in Greek epic and didactic, leading it to become the standard metre for these genres in Latin poetry. The
Annals became a school text for Roman schoolchildren, eventually supplanted by Virgil's
Aeneid. About 600 lines survive.
"The idle mind knows not what it wants." - Ennius
"Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur." - Ennius (quoted by Cicero,
Laelius 17.64)
