6.

(2) WORKS.

1. _Tragedies._--Of those founded on mythology we have fragments of
twenty-two, eight at least of which were borrowed from Euripides. The
_Auct. ad Herenn._ ii. 34, quotes nine lines which are a literal
translation of the beginning of the _Medea_. The date of the
_Thyestes_, B.C. 169, is the only one known (Cic. _Brut._ 78, quoted
p. 28). Besides these, Ennius probably wrote a praetexta on 'the Rape
of the Sabines'; and his _Ambracia_ is probably a praetexta on the
capture of the town by M. Fulvius Nobilior in B.C. 189 (L. Mueller
includes it in the _Saturae_).

2. _Comedies._--There are very slight fragments of the _Cupuncula_ and
the _Pancratiastes_.

3. _Saturae._--A miscellaneous collection of poems.

Porphyr. ad Hor. _Sat._ i. 10, 47, 'Ennius quattuor libros saturarum
reliquit.'

The reference in Hor. _Sat._ i. 10, 66,

'Quam rudis et Graecis intacti carminis auctor,'

is not to Ennius, as some have supposed, but to the inventor of
_satura_, whoever he may have been.

The _Saturae_ include (_a_) _Scipio_, probably a short epic. It was
mostly written in trochaic septenarii. (_b_) _Epicharmus_ (in trochaic
tetrameters), dealing with Pythagoreanism in the department of
physics. (_c_) _Euhemerus_ or _Sacra Historia_, modelled on Euhemerus'
+hiera anagraphe+,[16] the doctrines of which were applied
to the religion of Rome.

Cic. _N.D._ i. 119, 'Euhemerus, quem noster et interpretatus et
secutus est praeter ceteros Ennius.'

(_d_) _Protreptica_ or _Praecepta_, containing moral maxims. (_e_)
_Hedyphagetica_, 'On Gastronomy,' modelled on a hexameter poem by
Archestratus (about B.C. 310). (_f_) _Sota_, so called from
+Sotades+, after whom the Sotadean metre has been named. The book
was probably of a lascivious nature. (_g_) Epigrams; the chief of
which are mentioned above.

4. The _Annales_, an epic poem in hexameters, which dealt with the
history of Rome down to the beginning of the Third Macedonian War. It
contained eighteen Books; there are about six hundred lines extant.
The following is a sketch of the contents:

Book i., from Aeneas to the death of Romulus; ii., reigns of Numa
Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Martius; iii., the last three
kings; iv.-v., the republic down to the war with Pyrrhus; vi., the war
with Pyrrhus; vii., First Punic War, etc.; viii.-ix., Second Punic
War; x.-xii., Second Macedonian War, Cato's consulship; xiii.-xv., War
with Antiochus, subjugation of the