Editing Ennius (section)

==Biography==

Very little is reliably known about the life of Ennius. His contemporaries hardly mentioned him and much that is related about him could have been embroidered from references to himself in his now fragmentary writings.<ref>E. Badian, "Ennius and his Friends" in ''Ennius'', Fondation Hardt, Geneva 1972, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-Se1MLtw658C pp.149–99]</ref> Some lines of the ''Annales'', as well as ancient testimonies, for example, suggest that Ennius opened his epic with a recollection of a dream in which the ancient epic-writer [[Homer]] informed him that his spirit had been reborn into Ennius.<ref>[[#Aicher|Aicher (1989)]], pp. 227{{en dash}}32.</ref> It is true that the doctrine of the [[Metempsychosis#Platonic philosophy|transmigration of souls]] once flourished in the areas of Italy settled by Greeks, but the statement might have been no more than a literary flourish. Ennius seems to have been given to making large claims, as in the report by [[Maurus Servius Honoratus]] that he claimed descent from Messapus, the legendary king of his native district.<ref>Commentary on the ''Aeneid'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0053%3Abook%3D7%3Acommline%3D691 vii. 691]</ref> The partially Hellenised city of [[Rudiae]] (in modern [[Apulia]]), his place of birth, was certainly in the area settled by the [[Messapians]]. And this, he used to say, according to [[Aulus Gellius]], had endowed him with a triple linguistic and cultural heritage, fancifully described as "three hearts… Greek, [[Osci|Oscan]] and Latin".<ref>''Noctes Atticae'' [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2007.01.0072:id=v3.p.263 17.17.1]</ref>

The public career of Ennius first really emerges in middle life, when he was serving in the army with the rank of [[centurion]] during the [[Second Punic War]].  While in [[Sardinia]] in the year 204 BCE, he is said to have attracted the attention of [[Cato the Elder]] and was taken by him to Rome. There he taught Greek and adapted Greek plays for a livelihood, and by his poetical compositions gained the friendship of some of the greatest men in Rome whose achievements he praised. Amongst these were [[Scipio Africanus]] and [[Marcus Fulvius Nobilior (consul 189 BC)|Fulvius Nobilior]], whom he accompanied on his Aetolian campaign (189). Afterwards he made the capture of [[Ambracia]], at which he was present, the subject of a play and of an episode in the ''Annales''. It was through the influence of Nobilior's son [[Quintus Fulvius Nobilior|Quintus]] that Ennius subsequently obtained Roman citizenship. But he himself lived plainly and simply in the literary quarter on the [[Aventine Hill]] with the poet [[Caecilius Statius]], a fellow adapter of Greek plays.

At about the age of 70 Ennius died, immediately after producing his tragedy ''Thyestes''. In the last book of his epic poem, in which he seems to have given various details of his personal history, he mentioned that he was in his 67th year at the date of its composition. He compared himself, in contemplation of the close of the great work of his life, to a gallant horse which, after having often won the prize at the [[Ancient Olympic Games|Olympic Games]], obtained his rest when weary with age. A similar feeling of pride at the completion of a great career is expressed in the memorial lines which he composed to be placed under his bust after death: "Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men."<ref>Most of this section is drawn from the 1911 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica</ref>