The Roman Poets of the Republic, 3rd editionSellar, W. Y. (William Young)
History
The Roman Poets of the Republic, 3rd edition
Sellar, W. Y. (William Young)
Latin poetry -- History and criticism
Another of his miscellaneous works, probably of a moral and didactic
character, was known by the name of Protreptica. It is possible that
all of these works[27], as well as the Scipio, formed part of the
Saturae, or Miscellanies, under which title Ennius composed four,
or, according to another authority, six books. The Romans looked
upon Lucilius as the inventor of satire in the later sense of that
word[28];--he having been the first to impress upon the satura the
character of censorious criticism, which it has borne since his time.
But there was another kind of satura, of which Ennius and Pacuvius in
early times, and Varro at a somewhat later time, were regarded as the
principal authors. This was really a miscellany treating of various
subjects, in various metres, and, as employed by Varro, was written
partly in prose, partly in verse. This kind of composition, as well
as the Lucilian satire, arose out of the old indigenous satura or
dramatic medley, familiar to the Romans before the introduction of
Greek literature. When the scenic element in the original satura was
superseded by the new comedy introduced from Greece, the old name
was first applied to a miscellaneous kind of composition, in which
ordinary topics were treated in a serious but apparently desultory
way; and even as employed by Lucilius and Horace the satura retained
much of its original character. The satires of Ennius were written
in various metres, iambic, trochaic, and hexameter, and treated of
various topics of personal and public interest. The few passages which
ancient authorities quote as fragments from them are not of much value
in themselves, but when taken in connexion with the testimonies as to
their character, they are of some interest as showing that this kind
of composition was a form intermediate between the old dramatic satura
and the satire of Lucilius and Horace. It is recorded that in one
of these pieces, Ennius introduced a dialogue between Life and
Death;--thus transmitting in the use of dialogue (which appears very
frequently in Horace and Persius) some vestige of the original
scenic medley. Ennius also appears, like Lucilius and Horace, to have
communicated in his satires his own personal feelings and experience,
as in the fragment already quoted:--
Nunquam poetor, nisi si podager.
Further satire, in the hands of its chief masters, aimed at practical
moral teaching, not only by precept, ridicule, and invective, and
by portraiture of individuals and of types, but also by the use of
anecdotes and fables. This last mode of inculcating homely lessons on
the conduct of life is common in Horace. It appears, however, to have
been first used by Ennius. Aulus Gellius mentions that Aesop's fable
of the field-lark and the husbandman 'is very skilfully and gracefully
told by Ennius in his satires'; and he quotes the advice appended to
the fable, 'Never to expect your friends to do for you what you can do
for yourself':
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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