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Man becomes God
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
These revolutionary conceptions of metre which were encountered in Ennius by his first audience served in the Annales, his most influential work of all, to elevate to a new plane the history of Rome. The word ‘history’ here is important. It is difficult to say in what precise sense the ordinary Greek accepted Homer as history. Certainly Thucydides discusses the Iliad as history, but that is only half of Homer, and even accepting the Iliad with all its gods and goddesses as a literal account of what took place at Troy the listener would be conscious that it was all a very long time ago. But the subject-matter of the Annales was far from being all a very long time ago. Scholars have pointed out that there was precedent in Hellenistic epic for the treatment of historical events in verse, but this is not a subject on which easy generalization is permissible.
page 44 note 1 For the Greek dislike of confusing history and art cf. Aristotle, Poetics c. 9 (a hit at Choerilus of Samos? Cf. Callimachus, , Aitia i, fr. 1. 15 f. Pf.)Google Scholar: Herbig, R., Probleme der augusteischen Erneuerung (Frankfurt, 1938), 83Google Scholar; Richter, G. M. A., Handbook of Greek Art (London, 1959), 46.Google Scholar
page 44 note 2 Cf. Ziegler, K., Das hellenistische Epos (Leipzig and Berlin, 1934), esp. 21 ff.Google Scholar This monograph is, however, well criticized by Otis, B., Virgil, A Study in Civilized Poetry (London, 1964)Google Scholar, Appendix 2, and clearly the time is ripe for a reassessment of the whole problem.
page 44 note 3 Norden, E., Römische Literatur (Leipzig, 1954), 16.Google Scholar
page 44 note 4 Norden, , loc. cit. Cf. also p. 15.Google Scholar
page 44 note 5 N.H. vii. 101; cf. Skutsch in RE, s.v. Ennius, cols. 2608–10.
page 44 note 6 References and quotations in Warmington's Loeb edition of Ennius (London, 1956), 152 ff.
page 45 note 1 Cf. Pliny, N.H. viii. 5; Corn. Nep., Cat. iii. 4; cf. Skutsch, loc. cit., col. 2603, and for the hostility between Cato and Ennius cf. my article in Latinitas (April 1965), 91 and note 19.
page 45 note 2 Cf. Meyer, E.'s Caesars Monarchie und das Principat des Pompejus (Stuttgart, 1963), 520 ff.Google Scholar
page 45 note 3 Cf. Latte, K., Römische Religionsgeschichte (Munich, 1960), 294 ff.Google Scholar
page 45 note 4 Cf. Heinze on Epp. ii. 1. 5–22: H. Bengtson, Griechische Geschichte (Munich, 1950), 407. An important clue here is provided by Ennius' reference to Hōra as the deified Romulus' consort—cf. Nonius, quoted by Warmington on Ann. 116, Hora iuventutis dea—like ῞Ηβη. Presumably Hōra (῞ωρα) was the nearest Ennius could get to ῞Ηβη within the accepted tradition. Ovid, by contrast, with no axe to grind, leaves her as Hŏra (Met. xiv. 851). That he has the right quantity is suggested by the title of the gens Hŏratia. Miss Richter notes (Handbook, 354–5) that on Calene ware from S. Italy in the third century the apotheosis of Heracles was a favourite subject.
page 45 note 5 Cf. Wilamowitz, , Glaube der Hellenen (Basel-Stuttgart, 1956), ii. 422, note 2.Google Scholar
page 45 note 6 Ann. 63–64.
page 45 note 7 So Bengtson, , op. cit. 332Google Scholar: cf. Nilsson, M. P., Geschichte der griechischen Religion (Munich, 1961), ii. 135 ff.Google Scholar
page 45 note 8 Cf. Pro Archia 9. 22, quoted by Warmington on Ann. viii ad init.: Nilsson, , op. cit. 177 ff.Google Scholar For an interesting sidelight on all this cf. the statue of C. Ofellius found on Delos, adapted from the Hermes of Praxiteles, and signed by two sculptors at work in the second century b.c. Cf. Richter, G. M. A., Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks (Newhaven-London, 1957), 304Google Scholar and fig. 767: Webster, T. B. L., Hellenistic Poetry and Art (London, 1964), 247, 294–5.Google Scholar
page 46 note 1 Cf. Waszink, J. H., Mnemosyne, series 4, vol. 3 (1950), 215–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar But if Ennius had spoken of himself as drinking from the fountain of the Muses in the Annales, how could Horace have drawn such a sharp distinction between Ennius and the aquae potores in Epp. i. 19. 1 ff. ? Cf. the recent examination of this question by Kambylis, A., Die Dichterweihe und ihre Symbolik (Heidelberg, 1965), 191Google Scholar ff. Whatever Ennius may have borrowed from Alexandria he clearly put to very un-Alexandrian uses. That not much reliance is to be placed on Propertius' bibit (iii. 3. 6) is shown, e.g., by Anth. Pal. vii. 55. 5–6, where in defiance of Hesiod's own description (Theog. 22 ff.) he is said to have ‘tasted the pure water’. Cf. Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom (Wiesbaden, 1960), 226Google Scholar and note 1, and my Latinitas article quoted above, pp. 105–6.
page 46 note 2 Cf. Howald, E., Der Dichter Kallimachos von Kyrene (Erlenbach-Zürich, 1943), 90 ff.Google Scholar: Körte, A./Händel, P., Die hellenistische Dichtung (Stuttgart, 1960), 77 ff.Google Scholar: Piwonka, M. Puelma, Lucilius und Kallimachos (Frankfurt, 1949), 116 ff.Google Scholar
page 46 note 3 Cf. R. Pfeiffer's note on p. 11 of vol. i of his edition of Callimachus' fragments (reprinted Oxford, 1965). Why Piwonka, (op. cit. 158)Google Scholar and Marx say Lucilius 1061 must be quoting Ennius is obscure, especially in view of Horace Epp. i. 19.
page 46 note 4 Körte, /Händel, , op. cit. 269Google Scholar: cf. Piwonka, , op. cit. 144.Google Scholar
page 46 note 5 lambos i. 9 ff. (cf. Pfeiffer's note) shows Callimachus and Ennius at variance about the value of Euhemerus' work.
page 46 note 6 Cf. Fraenkel, E., Kleine Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie (Rome, 1964), ii. 53 ff.Google Scholar
page 47 note 1 Nilsson, , op. cit. 182.Google Scholar
page 47 note 2 Op. cit. 268 and notes.
page 47 note 3 Possibly Ennius may have been inspired by passages such as Eur. Herakles, 1346, ⋯οιδ⋯ν δύστηνοι λόγοι, cf. Helen, 744 ff. Cf. E. Norden's commentary on Aen. vi (Stuttgart, 1957) to line 14, p. 124. The implications of the Augustan revival of vates have been discussed by me in a study to appear under the auspices of the Collection Latomus (Brussels).
page 47 note 4 Cf. Warmington's Loeb edition, p. 414.
page 48 note 1 On Euripides as a thinker cf. Lesky, A., Tragische Dichtung der Hellenen (Göttingen, 1956), 207 ff.Google Scholar
page 48 note 2 Cf. Norden, E., Röm. Lit. 31Google Scholar: Patzer, H., Museum Helveticum (1955), 94Google Scholar shows how Cicero's hexameters betray his literary allegiance.
page 48 note 3 Horaz (Wiesbaden, 1962), first essay, ‘Altrömische und Horazische virtus’, p. 9. The whole epitaph is of course in elegiacs (introduced to Rome by Ennius): cf. Warmington, , Remains of Old Latin, vol. iv, Loeb (London, 1940), 8.Google Scholar
page 49 note 1 Contrast ⋯ρεταί which is already in Homer, and cf. Ennius, ' ‘homerization’Google Scholar of Roman history.
page 49 note 2 Warmington takes antiquis with both nouns. Is this necessary, or even probable?
page 49 note 3 Cf. Horace, , Odes iv. 8. 20Google Scholar, where Ennius and Theocritus again meet; cf. the next ode, iv. 9. 13–28; cf. Prop. iii. 1. 25 ff., where Butler and Barber quote Theocr. xvi. 48 ff.: K. F. Smith gathers useful parallels on Tibullus i. 4. 63 ff. A more immediate echo is provided by Odes iv. 4. 25 ff., where too we are in Ennian territory (cf. Heinze on the vocative Roma and the use of testis). On Ennius the Hellenistic eulogist cf. Claudian, De Cons. Stilich. iii, preface; Leo, F., Geschichte der römischen Literatur (Berlin, 1958), i. 158 and note.Google Scholar
page 49 note 4 Cf. the dedication by Ennius' patron, M. Fulvius, of a temple to Hercules Musarum (Rostagni, A., Storia della letteratura latina [Turin, 1954], i. 170–1Google Scholar; Latte, K., op. cit. 219)Google Scholar; for Pythagorean influence on the establishment of the worship of Hercules at Rome cf. Bardon, H., La Littérature latine inconnue (Paris, 1952), i. 25Google Scholar and notes. It was Pythagorean teachings which Ennius used at the beginning of the Annales to justify his identification of himself with Homer. With regard to Quirinus, I venture to suggest that scholars are wrong to regard him as a separate god from the earliest days of Roman religion. Certainly the attempt to make him the war-god of the Sabines has had to be abandoned for linguistic reasons (Rose, H. J., Oxford Classical DictionaryGoogle Scholar, s.v. ‘Quirinus’): on the other hand the Fetials' prayer in Livy, , i. 32. 6 ff.Google Scholar, which includes an appeal to lane Quirine (10) is now rejected as an archaizing invention by ProfFraenkel, (cf. Elementi plautini in Plauto [Florence, 1960], 426Google Scholar, note to p. 197 and refs.). Is it nevertheless possible that Quirinus was originally merely a cult-title of Janus, from the same root as celeres and quirites, referring to Janus in his capacity as god ‘of the cavalry’ (cf. κέλητες) at a time when cavalry were the really important members of the city-state's defence force? Later, as this importance faded, so would the significance of the title. Then, when the Romans were fighting against the Etruscans, they would hear of the Etruscan Charun, and a confusion with the title of their own Quirinus would lead to the idea that Quirinus was not just an aspect of Janus but a separate god. Interestingly, Quirinus' first separate temple dates from 293, during a war against the Samnites and their Etruscan allies. The vagueness of the new god's functions would make him available as the subject for the legend of Romulus' deification.
page 50 note 1 A curious word to use, but Plautus' fondness for similar exaggerations (Fraenkel, E., ElementiGoogle Scholar, etc., c. 1) suggest that we are not to take this exclusiveness too literally.
page 50 note 2 On Maeotis here cf. E. Norden, commentary to Aen. vi, Nachträge, p. 468.
page 50 note 3 Cf. Ann. 486; Varia, 8–9; Norden on Aen. vi. 851; Heinze on Odes iii. 6. 2.
page 50 note 4 Webster, T. B. L. (op. cit. 209Google Scholar: cf. his whole chapter, 178 ff.) shows that we might use μύστης of Ennius simply as a Hellenistic equivalent for ‘poet’: cf. Anth. Pal. iv. 1. 57. But in its Roman context Ennius' attitude takes on a deeper significance than this.
page 51 note 1 Ann. 32–48; cf. Leo, , op. cit. 179, note 2.Google Scholar
page 51 note 2 Cf. Pro Archia 9. 22.
page 51 note 3 Duff, J. Wight, The Literary History of Rome, from the Origins to the Close of the Golden Age (3rd ed., 2nd impression, London, 1960), 113.Google Scholar
page 51 note 4 Cf. the epigraphs to his Hellenism (London, 1959), contrasting Antigone 332–3 and Matt. iv. 10.
page 51 note 5 This of course is the whole theme of War and Peace: cf. the arguments in Part II of the Epilogue on the nature of power.
In concluding I should like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to my former pupil Mr. D. D. Mara, who not only asked the original question which these articles have tried to discuss, but also suggested where the answer might lie.