This paper investigates the significance of philosophical themes to Ennius’ representation of Roman history in the Annals. In particular, it focuses on two recurring motifs in Ennius’ literary production – namely, the Empedoclean doctrine of the four elements and the destiny of souls after death – and interprets them as ways to speak about historical change and cultural transfer. Ultimately, I aim to show that the narrative of the Annals was articulated into multiple reading levels, and that the embedding of philosophy in historical epic stressed the role of political communities as links between the human and the divine sphere.

In this chapter I offer some thoughts about the models for Ennius’ divine apparatus and about the balance struck in the Annals among the Varronian theologies. Specifically, I suggest (1) that Ennius’ treatment of the gods owes as much to Hesiod as it does to Homer; (2) that this debt involves structural as well as thematic resemblances between the Annals and Hesiod’s genealogical poetry; (3) that Ennius represents the Olympians as a group very differently from Hesiod or Homer; and (4) that the rationalizing theology of Euhemerus’ Sacred History, which Ennius translated into Latin, is present in the Annals to a larger extent than is commonly assumed. On this basis I suggest (5) that the poem’s representation of the gods evolves in a way that represents the increasing eclecticism of philosophical ideas about divinity over time. The result is that the poem ends with a perspective that is overtly different from, but not fundamentally incompatible with the one with which it began.