The eighth and ninth books of these Annals, which are much mutilated, detailed the events of the second Carthaginian war in Italy and Africa. This was by much the most interesting part of the copious subject which Ennius had chosen, and a portion of it on which he would probably exert all the force of his genius, in order the more to honour his friend and patron Scipio Africanus. The same topic was selected by Silius Italicus, and by Petrarch for his Latin poem _Africa_, which obtained him a coronation in the Capitol. “Ennius,” says the illustrious Italian, “has sung fully of Scipio; but, in the opinion of Valerius Maximus, his style is harsh and vulgar, and there is yet no elegant poem which has for its subject the glorious exploits of the conqueror of Hannibal.” None of the poets who have chosen this topic, have done full justice to the most arduous struggle in which two powerful nations had ever engaged, and which presented the most splendid display of military genius on the one hand, and heroic virtue on the other, that had yet been exhibited to the world. Livy’s historical account of the second Punic war possesses more real poetry than any poem on the subject whatever. The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth books of the Annals of Ennius, contained the war with Philip of Macedon. In the commencement of the thirteenth, Hannibal excites Antiochus to a war against the Romans. In the fourteenth book, the Consul Scipio, in the prosecution of this contest, arrives at Ilium, which he thus apostrophizes: “O patria! O divûm domus Ilium, et incluta bello Pergama!” Several Latin writers extol the elegant lines of Ennius immediately following, in which the Roman soldiers, alluding to its magnificent revival in Rome, exclaim with enthusiasm, that Ilium could not be destroyed; “Quai neque Dardaneeis campeis potuere perire, Nec quom capta capei, nec quom combusta cremari(194);” a passage which has been closely imitated in the seventh book of Virgil: “Num Sigeis occumbere campis, Num capti potuere capi: num incensa cremavit Troja viros?” The fifteenth book related the expedition of Fulvius Nobilior to Ætolia, which Ennius himself is said to have accompanied. In the two following books he prosecuted the Istrian war; which concludes with the following animated description of a single hero withstanding the attack of an armed host:— “Undique conveniunt, velut imber, tela Tribuno. Configunt parmam, tinnit hastilibus umbo, Æratæ sonitant galeæ: sed nec pote quisquam Undique nitendo corpus discerpere ferro. Semper abundanteis hastas frangitque, quatitque; Totum sudor habet corpus, moltumque laborat; Nec respirandi fit copia præpete ferro. Istrei tela manu jacientes sollicitabant. Occumbunt moltei leto, ferroque lapique, Aut intra moeros, aut extra præcipi casu(195).” The concluding, or eighteenth, book seems to have been in a great measure personal to the poet himself. It explains his motive for writing:—