CHAPTER VI. NÆVIUS STOOD BETWEEN TWO AGES—LIFE OF ENNIUS—EPITAPHS WRITTEN BY HIM—HIS TASTE, LEARNING, AND CHARACTER—HIS FITNESS FOR BEING A LITERARY REFORMER—HIS INFLUENCE ON THE LANGUAGE—HIS VERSIFICATION—THE ANNALS—DIFFICULTIES OF THE SUBJECT—TRAGEDIES AND COMEDIES—SATIRÆ—MINOR WORKS. ENNIUS (BORN B. C. 239.) Nævius appears to have occupied a position between two successive ages; he was the last of the oldest school of writers, and prepared the way for a new one. Although a true Roman in sentiment, he admired Greek cultivation. He saw with regret the old literature of his country fading away, although he had himself introduced new principles of taste to his countrymen. He was not prepared for the shock of seeing the old school superseded by the new. But still the period for this had arrived, and in his epitaph, as we have seen, he deplored that Latin had died with him. A love for old Roman literature remained amongst the goatherds of the hills and the husbandmen of the valleys and plains, in whose memories lived the old songs which had been the delight of their infancy: it survived amongst the few who could discern merit in undisciplined genius; but the rising generation, who owed their taste to education, admired only those productions by which their taste had been formed. Greek literature had now an open field in which to flourish: it had driven out its predecessor, although as yet it had not struck its roots deeply into the Roman mind; a new school of poetry arose, and of that school Ennius was the founder. The principal events in the life of Ennius are as follows:—he was born at the little village of Rudiæ, in the wild and mountainous Calabria, B. C. 239.[146] Of ancient and honourable descent,[147] he is said[148] to have begun life in a military career, and to have risen to the rank of a centurion or captain. The anonymous author of the life of Cato, which is generally attributed to Cornelius Nepos, relates that Cato in his voyage from Africa to Rome[149] visited Sardinia, and finding Ennius in that island took him home with him. But no reason can be assigned why Ennius should have been there, or why Cato should have gone so far out of his way. If the Censor did really introduce the poet to public notice at Rome, he may have made his acquaintance during his quæstorship in Africa, if Ennius was with Scipio in that province; or during his prætorship[150] in Sardinia, if the poet was a resident in that island. There exist, however, no sufficient data to clear up these difficulties.