'Aspicite, o cives, senis Enni imaginis formam! hic vestrum panxit maxima facta patrum; Nemo me dacrumis decoret nec funera fletu faxit. Cur? Volito vivus per ora virum.' According to Aelius Stilo, Ennius has depicted his own character in _Ann._ vii. fr. 10, wherein he portrays Servilius Geminus, the trusty companion of a man of position (Gell. xii. 4). For Ennius' self-appreciation cf. also his epitaph (if by himself) quoted above, and _Ann._ i. fr. 4, 'Latos per populos terrasque poemata nostra clara cluebunt.' In philosophy Ennius was an eclectic. Cf. _Trag._ 1. 417, 'Philosophari est mihi necesse, at paucis: nam omnino haut placet. Degustandum ex ea, non in eam ingurgitandum censeo.' His rationalism is seen in _Telamo_, fr. 1, 'Ego deum genus esse semper dixi et dicam caelitum, sed eos non curare opinor, quid agat humanum genus: nam si curent, bene bonis sit, male malis, quod nunc abest'; _ibid._, fr. 2, 'Sed superstitiosi vates inpudentesque arioli, aut inertes aut insani aut quibus egestas imperat, qui sibi semitam non sapiunt, alteri monstrant viam, quibus divitias pollicentur, ab eis drachumam ipsi petunt.' Traces of Epicureanism are seen in _Ann._ i. fr. 13, 'Terraque corpus quae dedit ipsa capit neque dispendi facit hilum.' Ennius also believed in the Pythagorean theory of metempsychosis, and considered that his soul had animated the body of a peacock. _Ann._ i. fr. 14, 'Memini me fiere pavom.' Persius 6, 10, 'Cor iubet hoc Enni postquam destertuit esse Maeonides Quintus pavone e Pythagoreo.' Cf. also Lucr. i. 120-6. (2) WORKS. 1. _Tragedies._--Of those founded on mythology we have fragments of twenty-two, eight at least of which were borrowed from Euripides. The _Auct. ad Herenn._ ii. 34, quotes nine lines which are a literal translation of the beginning of the _Medea_. The date of the _Thyestes_, B.C. 169, is the only one known (Cic. _Brut._ 78, quoted p. 28). Besides these, Ennius probably wrote a praetexta on 'the Rape of the Sabines'; and his _Ambracia_ is probably a praetexta on the capture of the town by M. Fulvius Nobilior in B.C. 189 (L. Müller includes it in the _Saturae_). 2. _Comedies._--There are very slight fragments of the _Cupuncula_ and the _Pancratiastes_. 3. _Saturae._--A miscellaneous collection of poems. Porphyr. ad Hor. _Sat._ i. 10, 47, 'Ennius quattuor libros saturarum reliquit.' The reference in Hor. _Sat._ i. 10, 66, 'Quam rudis et Graecis intacti carminis auctor,' is not to Ennius, as some have supposed, but to the inventor of _satura_, whoever he may have been. The _Saturae_ include (_a_) _Scipio_, probably a short epic. It was mostly written in trochaic septenarii. (_b_) _Epicharmus_ (in trochaic tetrameters), dealing with Pythagoreanism in the department of physics. (_c_) _Euhemerus_ or _Sacra Historia_, modelled on Euhemerus' ἱερὰ ἀναγραφή,[16] the doctrines of which were applied to the religion of Rome.