Quintus Ennius

Reading notes

• On Divination §1.107 as it stands in Ennius

  The verses on Romulus and Remus taking the auspices on the Aventine and Palatine are quoted from the Annales of Ennius, the founding epic of Latin literature.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.41 \textit{Nimium boni est, cui nihil est mali}

  A line attributed to the early Roman poet Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC): "He has too much of good who has nothing of evil." Cicero cites it to argue that mere absence of evil is not the same as the positive good of the happy life.

• On the Nature of the Gods §1.97 as Ennius says

  Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC), the father of Latin poetry. Cotta quotes his line on the ape's likeness to man to show that resemblance of shape need not mean kinship of nature.

• On the Nature of the Gods §2.4 that same Ennius has it, \textit{father of gods and of men}

  Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC), the father of Latin epic poetry. Balbus repeatedly quotes his lines on Jupiter as evidence that belief in a supreme god is universal.

• On Duties §2.62 Ennius put it admirably

  Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC), the father of Latin poetry; Cicero quotes him repeatedly. Here for the maxim that benefits ill-placed are no benefits at all.

• On Duties §3.62 Hence Ennius

  Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC), the father of Latin poetry. Cicero quotes his line that wisdom is wasted on a wise man who cannot benefit himself, then disputes what 'benefit' means.

• On the Commonwealth §5.1 On ancient morals stands the Roman state, and on its men

  The famous opening of Book 5, preserved by Augustine, citing Ennius's line moribus antiquis res stat Romana virisque. Cicero's image of the painting fading with antiquity (his own age neglecting both colours and outline) is among the most resonant passages in the political tradition.

• Tusculan Disputations §1.26 whom Ennius calls the "ancients"

  Ennius's word casci ('the men of old'), which Cicero glosses; the appeal to hoary antiquity is itself an argument from the authority of the earliest, divinely descended generations who believed the dead retain sensation.

• Tusculan Disputations §1.34 the features of the likeness of old Ennius

  Quoted from an epigram Ennius wrote on his own portrait-bust, claiming the immortality of poetic fame. The following line, 'Let no one honor me with tears... Alive, I fly upon the lips of men,' is Ennius's famous self-epitaph, returned to at the close of the book (1.117).

• Tusculan Disputations §1.117 Ennius's words are better than Solon's

  Cicero closes by setting Ennius's self-epitaph ('Let no one honor me with tears... for I live on the lips of men') against a verse of Solon asking to be mourned, and prefers Ennius's confident refusal of grief over death.

• Tusculan Disputations §3.5 as Ennius says

  Quintus Ennius (239-169 BC), the father of Latin epic and tragedy, quoted constantly in the Tusculans. The line on the sick soul that 'always wanders' comes from one of his tragedies.

• Tusculan Disputations §4.52 Ennius rightly called it the beginning of madness

  A line of the early Roman poet Ennius defining anger (ira) as the beginning of madness (initium insaniae), often quoted by Cicero.