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Home  »  library  »  BIOS  »  Ennius (239–169 B.C.)

C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Ennius (239–169 B.C.)

Ennius, Quintus (en’i-us). A Roman poet; born at Rudiæ in Calabria, 239 B.C.; died in 169 B.C. While a centurion in the army, he was induced by Cato the elder to visit Rome, and came into close association with Scipio Africanus and the other great men there. A Calabrian with Greek culture, he was doubtless the most learned Latin of his time. He essayed nearly every kind of poetry, narrative or epic (in his metrical ‘Annals’), dramatic (tragedy and comedy), didactic (or natural, philosophy, theology, or mythology, and gastronomy). Nothing of his has come down to us complete, but many considerable fragments are preserved in the works of classic writers and anthologists. (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).