And that is he whom we call Jove, whom Grecians call The atmosphere: who in one person is the wind and clouds, then rain, And after, freezing hail; and once again, thin air. For this, those things are Jove considered which I name to you, Since by these elements do men and cities, beasts. And all things else exist. There was a satire by Ennius, as Quintilian tells us, containing a dialogue between Life and Death; but of this we have not a remnant. He also introduced the fables of Æsop into his writings. The following is the moral which he deduces from the story of the lark and the farmers--a moral which Aulus Gellius assures us that it would be worth our while to take well to heart. It may be freely translated as follows: Now list to this warning, give diligent heed, Whether seeking for pleasure or pelf: Don't wait for your neighbors to help in your need, But just go and do it yourself! Surely Miles Standish might have gained from his Ennius, as well as from his Cæsar, that famous motto: If you wish a thing well done, You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others! We may leave our present notice of Ennius with a glance at the epitaph which he wrote for himself. It is classed with his epigrams, but it may properly be considered in connection with the medley of his satires. In it he claims that unsubstantial immortality of remembrance and of mention among men which is even now, as we write and read, being vouchsafed to him. Behold, O friends, old Ennius' carvéd stone, Who wrote your father's deeds with lambent pen; Let no tears deck my funeral, for lo, My soul immortal lives on lips of men. We have seen that the spirit of invective in Lucilius, which became in his hands the spirit of satire, is traceable to the old Greek comedy. The poetic form (the dactylic hexameter in which he wrote twenty of the thirty books of his satire) had already been naturalized in Roman literature by Ennius in his great epic poem. But to Lucilius is due the credit of being the first to incarnate this spirit in this form, and thus to establish an entirely new type in literature. His satires contain invectives against luxury, avarice, and kindred vices, and prevalent superstitions; an attack upon the rich; ridicule of certain rhetorical affectations; grammatical remarks, and criticisms on art; observations upon the Stoic philosophy; the poet's own political experiences and expectations, also other anecdotes and incidents gathered from his own experience; an interesting account of a journey to Sicily, from which Horace probably obtained the model for his famous journey to Brundisium. These and many other subjects filled his pages, and suggest by their wide range the old-time medley-satire.