Is dictus 'st ollis popularibus olim Qui tum vivebant homines, atque aevum agitabant, Flos delibatus populi suadaeque medulla.[110] He seems to admire the sterling qualities of character and intellect rather than the brilliant manifestations of impulse and genius. He celebrates the heroism of brave endurance rather than of chivalrous daring[111]; the fortitude that, in the long run, wins success, and saves the State[112], rather than the impetuous valour which achieves a barren glory; the sincerity and simplicity which are stronger than art, yet that know when to speak and when to be silent[113]; the sagacity which enables men to understand their circumstances, and to turn them to the best account[114]. Many of his fragments, again, show traces of that just and vigorous understanding of human life, and that shrewdness of observation, which constitute a great satirist. The didactic tone of satire appears, for instance, in the following lines-- Otioso in otio animus nescit quid velit; Hic itidem est: enim neque domi nunc nos neque militiae sumus, Imus huc, illuc hinc, cum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet; Incerte errat animus: praeter propter vitam vivitur[115],-- a fragment which might be compared with certain passages in the Epistles of Horace, which give expression to the _ennui_ experienced as a result of the inaction and luxurious living of the Augustan age. But a closer parallel will be found in a passage where Lucretius has assumed something of the caustic tone of Roman satire-- Exit saepe foras magnis ex aedibus ille Esse domi quem pertaesum 'st, subitoque revertit, Quippe domi nihilo melius qui sentiat esse,' etc.[116] While Ennius, like Lucretius, gives little indication of humour, yet the folly and superstition of his times provoke him into tones of contemptuous irony, especially where he has to expose the arts of false prophets and fortune-tellers. The men of the manliest temper and the strongest understanding in ancient times were most intolerant of this mischievous form of imposture and credulity. Thus Thucydides, in general so reserved in his expression of personal feeling, treats, with a manifest irony, all supernatural pretences to foresee or control the future. The tone in which Ennius writes of such professions reminds us of Milton's grim contempt for Eremites and friars White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery. Thus, in a fragment of Book xi. of the Annals, the fears excited by the prophets and diviners at the commencement of the war with Antiochus are encountered with the pertinent question-- Satin' vates verant aetate in agenda? Thus too the pretensions and the ignorance of astrologers are exposed in a line of one of the dramas-- Quod est ante pedes nemo spectat: caeli scrutantur plagas. And the following passage may be quoted as applicable to charlatans of every kind, in every age and country--