“Etsi præterea tamen esse Acherusia Templa Ennius æternis exponit versibus edens; Quo neque permanent animæ, neque corpora nostra, Sed quædam simulacra modis pallentia miris: Unde, sibi exortam, semper florentis Homeri Commemorat speciem, lacrumas effundere salsas Cœpisse, et rerum naturam expandere dictis.” Accordingly, we find in the fragments of Ennius many imitations of the Iliad and Odyssey. It is, however, the Greek tragic writers whom Ennius has chiefly imitated; and indeed it appears from the fragments which remain, that all his plays were rather translations from the dramas of Sophocles and Euripides, on the same subjects which he has chosen, than original tragedies. They are founded on the old topics of Priam and Paris, Hector and Hecuba; and truly Ennius, as well as most other Latin tragedians, seems to have anticipated Horace’s maxim— “Rectus Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, Quamsi proferres ignota indictaque primus.” But although it be quite clear that all the plays of Ennius were translated, or closely imitated, from the Greek, there is occasionally some difficulty in fixing on the drama which was followed, and also in ascertaining whether there be any original passage whatever in the Latin imitation. This difficulty arises from the practice adopted by the Greek dramatists, of new modelling their tragedies. Euripides, in particular, sometimes altered his plays after their first representation, in order to accommodate them to the circumstances of the times, and to obviate the sarcastic criticisms of Aristophanes, who had frequently exposed whole scenes to ridicule. With such views, considerable changes were made on _Iphigenia in Aulis_, the _Hippolytus_, and _Medea_. Euripides is the author from whom Ennius has chiefly borrowed the fables of his tragedies; and when Sophocles and Euripides have treated the same subject, the latter poet has been uniformly preferred. Not one of the dramas of Ennius has been imitated from Æschylus. The reason of this is sufficiently obvious: The plays of Æschylus have little involution of plot, and are rather what we should now term dramatic sketches, than tragedies. The plots of Sophocles are more complex than those of Æschylus; but the tragedies of Euripides are the most involved of all. Now, it may be presumed, that a tragedy crowded with action, and filled with the bustle of a complicated fable, was best adapted to the taste of the Romans, because we _know_ that this was their taste in comedy. Plautus combined two Greek comedies to form one Latin; and the representation of the Hecyra of Terence, the only Latin play formed on the simple Greek model, was repeatedly abandoned by the people before it was concluded, for the sake of amusements of more tumult and excitement.