Q., a celebrated Roman poet, born at Rudiae in Calabria, B.C. 239. Of his early life nothing is known, save a tradition that he entered the Roman army and rose to the rank of centurion. In the thirty-eighth year of his age he went to Rome under the protection of Cato; but he left it shortly afterwards, and served in the Greek campaigns under M. Fulvius Nobilior. Through the son of this commander, Ennius, when far advanced in years, obtained the rights of citizenship, at that time the greatest honour for which an alien could look in the Roman commonwealth. During the wars with Greece he made himself thoroughly master of the language and literature of that country; and on his return to Rome he formed the bold design of modelling the Latin language on the basis of the Greek, especially in so far as the metres of the latter tongue were capable of being adapted to the genius of the former. The success with which he worked out this idea, and his general reputation as a man of learning (for he spoke no fewer than three different languages—a very rare accomplishment in those days), gained for him the respect even of the haughtiest patrician families whose children he instructed. With the Scipios, in particular, he lived on terms of the greatest intimacy; and when at length he died in the seventieth year of his age (B.C. 169), he was buried in the tomb of that illustrious family.

The works of Ennius have long since perished; though at what date cannot be exactly determined. A. G. Cramer believes them to have existed entire so late as the thirteenth century, though there are good reasons for doubting the correctness of this statement. Such portions of his works as are quoted by Cicero and other ancient writers, though they amount in all to some hundreds of lines, are yet so fragmentary and unconnected that it is impossible to form from them any estimate of the works from which they are extracted. Some few of these quotations are in themselves complete and perfect pictures, often of much originality and force, such as that preserved by Aulus Gellius, in which the duties of a client to a patron are set forth. Though we cannot now judge for ourselves of Ennius's merits as a poet, yet if the testimony of the most competent judge among his own countrymen be believed, he possessed no mean claims to the title of the Roman Homer. As in the case of the Grecian bard, there arose a race of men who earned a livelihood by reciting his martial strains to the rural population in the Roman provinces, and even to the more refined audiences of the metropolis. It is no mean attestation to the genuine worth of Ennius's lays that they suited the tastes of every grade of Roman society, and retained their popularity unimpaired till the days of the empire. Cicero more than once speaks of Ennius as the greatest of Roman poets; and Virgil not only praised him, but borrowed from him some of the finest thoughts which adorn the Æneid.

The service which Ennius rendered to the Latin as a national tongue we have already alluded to. The benefits which he conferred upon it are analogous both in kind and in degree to those which Chaucer conferred upon the English tongue. Before his time the Romans could hardly be said to possess a regularly constructed language, or any literature beyond the rude ballads which they received by oral tradition from their ancestors. He left them both a language and the basis of an independent and national literature.

In the fragments of his works which have survived to our day we observe traces of the most intense nationality. They all breathe a high spirit of independence, and display loftiness and vigour of thought, and an energy of expression such as none of the later poets of Rome ever attained, and which amply compensate the trouble of mastering the archaic forms in which he delighted. The reader who will not allow himself to be repelled by the apparent clumsiness or even coarseness of this antique phraseology, will probably admit that after all they are better adapted for expressing that style of thought which Ennius cultivated than the more refined dialect of a later era. The most important of his works was his *Annalium Libri XVIII.*, an epic poem in which was related the history of Rome, with all its mythological and fabulous incrustations, from the era of Mars and Rhea till the end of the second Punic war. Next in importance were his plays, which were for the most part translated or adapted from the Greek, the original metres being preserved. Of his tragedies, the titles and fragments of twenty-six have been preserved. Similar remains of four comedies have come down to us. His satires, which may rank third in importance, were written in four or six books, and in a great variety of metres. His other works are very miscellaneous in their character. These are—*Scipio*, a panegyric upon the elder Africanus; *Epicharmus*, a didactic poem, which, from some fragments which have descended to us, may be conjectured to have borne a strong resemblance to Lucretius's great work; *Phaeneticus*, a treatise upon edible fishes, believed to be a translation from Archestratus; *Epigrams*, of which only two upon Scipio now remain; *Proteotica*, a work on practical ethics, but whether prose or poetical, cannot now be decided. The first edition of the poetical fragments of Ennius appeared at Paris in 1564, from the press of the Stephenses; but a much more complete and correct edition appeared at Naples about the close of the same century, under the care of Jerome Colonna, which was reprinted with the notes of Voss and Delrio at Amsterdam in 1707. This must still be regarded as the best edition of Ennius.