Chapter 8 - Ennius and the fata librorum

Summary

If readers determine the fate of books, we might think the Annals of Quintus Ennius enjoyed but ephemeral success. Its fragments are few, its original audience and intent unclear. In this paper I ask how so vast a monument became such a ruin, and what the evidence of its survival reveals about the process of its destruction. Those who knew the poem best are among that handful of Romans – Cicero and Vergil prominent among them – whom we know best. What did “ordinary” Romans know, pretend to know, or could they be expected to know of it? Close attention to the poem’s reception suggests that it was best known through favored extracts and that the idea of the Annals was more firmly fixed in the Roman literary consciousness than the poem itself.