Cicero, in his _Brutus_, says, that Ennius did not treat of the first Punic war, as Nævius had previously written on that subject(191); to which prior work Ennius thus alludes:— “Scripsere alii rem, Versibus, quos olim Faunei, vatesque canebant.” P. Merula, however, who edited the fragments of Ennius, is of opinion, that this passage of Cicero can only mean that he had not entered into much detail of its events, as he finds several lines in the seventh book, which, he thinks, evidently apply to the first Carthaginian war, particularly the description of naval preparations, and the building of the first fleet with which the Carthaginians were attacked by the Romans. In some of the editions of Ennius, the character of the friend and military adviser of Servilius, generally supposed to be intended as a portrait of the poet himself(192), is ranged under the seventh book:— “Hocce locutus vocat, quicum bene sæpe libenter Mensam, sermonesque suos, rerumque suarum Comiter impertit; magna quum lapsa dies jam Parte fuisset de parvis summisque gerendis, Consilio, induforo lato, sanctoque senatu; Cui res audacter magnas, parvasque, jocumque Eloqueret, quæ tincta maleis, et quæ bona dictu Evomeret, si quid vellet, tutoque locaret. Quocum multa volup ac gaudia clamque palamque. Ingenium cui nulla malum sententia suadet, Ut faceret facinus; lenis tamen, haud malus; idem Doctus, fidelis, suavis homo, facundus, suoque Contentus, scitus, atque beatus, secunda loquens in Tempore commodus, et verborum vir paucorum. Multa tenens antiqua sepulta, et sæpe vetustas Quæ facit, et mores veteresque novosque tenentem Multorum veterum leges, divumque hominumque Prudentem, qui multa loquive, tacereve possit. Hunc inter pugnas compellat Servilius sic(193).”